To study the neuroanatomical correlate of involuntary unilateral blinking in humans, using the example of patients with focal epilepsy. Patients with drug resistant focal epilepsy undergoing presurgical evaluation with stereotactically implanted EEG-electrodes (sEEG) were recruited from the local epilepsy monitoring unit. Only patients showing ictal unilateral blinking or unilateral blinking elicited by direct electrical stimulation were included (n = 16). MRI and CT data were used for visualization of the electrode positions. In two patients, probabilistic tractography with seeding from the respective electrodes was additionally performed. Three main findings were made: (1) involuntary unilateral blinking was associated with activation of the anterior temporal region, (2) tractography showed widespread projections to the ipsilateral frontal, pericentral, occipital, limbic and cerebellar regions and (3) blinking was observed predominantly in female patients with temporal lobe epilepsies. Unilateral blinking was found to be associated with an ipsilateral activation of the anterior temporal region. We suggest that the identified network is not part of the primary blinking control but might have modulating influence on ipsilateral blinking by integrating contextual information.

以局灶性癫痫患者为例，研究人类不自主单侧眨眼的神经解剖学相关性。从局部癫痫监测部门招募了接受立体定向植入脑电图电极 (sEEG) 术前评估的耐药局灶性癫痫患者。仅包括显示发作期单侧眨眼或由直接电刺激引起的单侧眨眼的患者（n = 16）。MRI和CT数据用于电极位置的可视化。在两名患者中，额外进行了从各自电极播种的概率纤维束成像。有三个主要发现：（1）不自主的单侧眨眼与前颞区的激活有关，（2）纤维束成像显示对同侧额叶的广泛投射，中央周围、枕部、边缘和小脑区域和 (3) 眨眼主要在患有颞叶癫痫的女性患者中观察到。发现单侧眨眼与前颞区的同侧激活有关。我们建议识别的网络不是主要眨眼控制的一部分，但可能通过整合上下文信息对同侧眨眼产生调节影响。