| Summary: | As per the reports of the World Health Organization, around 50 million people
worldwide are affected by Epilepsy which constitutes close to 1% of the total human
population. In 70% of the cases, the use of AED (Anti-Epilepsy drugs) has proven to
be successful in the treatment of epilepsy. In some cases who respond poorly to the
Anti-Epilepsy Drugs, surgical therapy may be effective. Surgical epilepsy treatment is
a complicated procedure which requires a thorough analysis of the patient's brain
activity. This is usually done by obtaining data through various neuroimaging
techniques such as electroencephalogram (EEG), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),
diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), etc. and then identifying the location of the seizure
onset zone which may differ from patient to patient. Once the seizure onset zone has
been located, it can be removed through resection to prevent the occurrence of
seizures. However, in case of generalized seizures, the onset zone for the seizures is
unknown which makes surgical treatment impossible.
In this dissertation, actual clinical data of patients with IGE have been analysed to
identify the differences present in the structural and the functional organisation of
nodes and edges in the brain networks of patients when compared to that of healthy
controls by calculating and comparing various graph theoretical measures. The
significantly different regions identified may help doctors to perform surgical epilepsy
treatment in patients with IGE. The results may assist further research to unravel the
structural and functional abnormalities that cause excessive neuronal activity in the
brain.
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