Growing evidence has supported that the nucleus accumbens (NAc), especially its shell portion, has been involved in epileptogenesis. However, relevant studies on vivo human brain are quite limited. In this study, we investigated left mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) related function connectivity (FC) changes of NAc subregions using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. We calculated functional connectivity from two NAc subregions to both whole brain and 16 related targets. Two-sample t-test (Alphasim multiple comparisons corrected) was performed to identify the effect of the disease on each seed's whole brain network. Repeated-measures ANOVA and Post hoc pairwise t test (Bonferroni corrections) were performed to visualize the seed to target FC group differences in each subdivision. In whole brain FC networks, neither the left or right core show different FC changes. The left shell showed decreased FC with a cluster located around the right inferior frontal gyrus. The right shell portion showed increased FC with a cluster located around the left inferior temporal gyrus. The seed to targets results showed that the left shell of LTLE group exhibited lower FC with left posterior-parahippocampal gyrus and right caudate, putamen, thalamus, paracingulate gyrus but higher FC with right subcallosal cortex. The right core of LTLE group exhibited higher FC with right frontal pole and the right shell exhibited lower FC with left thalamus and left anterior-parahippocampal gyrus. This is the first study to investigate the functional connectivity changes of NAc subdivisions of epilepsy in vivo human brain. Our results showed that the left MTLE related FC changes on NAc are mainly on shell portion rather than core. The decrease FC between the left shell and right frontal area and the decrease FC between the right shell and left temporal area suggested they serve vital roles for MTLE.

中文翻译：

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左侧颞叶内侧癫痫患者伏隔核壳部分的功能连通性变化。

越来越多的证据支持伏隔核 (NAc)，尤其是它的壳部分，参与了癫痫发生。然而，对活体人脑的相关研究却十分有限。在这项研究中，我们使用静息态功能磁共振成像研究了 NAc 子区域与左内侧颞叶癫痫 (MTLE) 相关的功能连通性 (FC) 变化。我们计算了从两个 NAc 子区域到整个大脑和 16 个相关目标的功能连接。进行双样本 t 检验（Alphasim 多重比较校正）以确定疾病对每个种子的整个大脑网络的影响。执行重复测量方差分析和事后成对 t 检验（Bonferroni 校正）以可视化每个细分中种子与目标 FC 组的差异。在全脑 FC 网络中，左侧或右侧核心均未显示出不同的 FC 变化。左壳显示 FC 减少，簇位于右额下回周围。右侧壳部分显示 FC 增加，簇位于左侧颞下回周围。种子到目标结果显示，LTLE 组的左壳表现出较低的 FC，包括左侧后海马旁回和右侧尾状核、壳核、丘脑、副扣带回，但具有较高的右侧胼胝体下皮层 FC。LTLE 组的右核表现出较高的 FC 与右额极，右壳表现出较低的 FC 与左丘脑和左前海马旁回。这是第一项研究体内人脑癫痫 NAc 细分的功能连接变化的研究。我们的结果表明，左侧 MTLE 相关的 NAc 上的 FC 变化主要在壳部分而不是核心。左壳和右额区之间的 FC 减少以及右壳和左颞区之间的 FC 减少表明它们对 MTLE 起着至关重要的作用。