Dynamic functional connectivity and gene expression correlates in temporal lobe epilepsy: insights from hidden markov models

Abstract Backgroud Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is associated with abnormal dynamic functional connectivity patterns, but the dynamic changes in brain activity at each time point remain unclear, as does the potential molecular mechanisms associated with the dynamic temporal characteristics of TLE. Methods Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) was acquired for 84 TLE patients and 35 healthy controls (HCs). The data was then used to conduct HMM analysis on rs-fMRI data from TLE patients and an HC group in order to explore the intricate temporal dynamics of brain activity in TLE patients with cognitive impairment (TLE-CI). Additionally, we aim to examine the gene expression profiles associated with the dynamic modular characteristics in TLE patients using the Allen Human Brain Atlas (AHBA) database. Results Five HMM states were identified in this study. Compared with HCs, TLE and TLE-CI patients exhibited distinct changes in dynamics, including fractional occupancy, lifetimes, mean dwell time and switch rate. Furthermore, transition probability across HMM states were significantly different between TLE and TLE-CI patients (p