Distinctive Structural and Effective Connectivity Changes of Semantic Cognition Network across Left and Right Mesial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Patients

Figure 3

Causal influence of effective connectivity between ROIs in the semantic cognition network. (i) Connection density among the three groups of left HS patients, right HS patients, and normal controls was not significantly different from each other. (ii) The network hub in the normal controls was the right tpMTG (the flow-in hub the right dmPFC and the flow-out hub the right tpMTG), and the network hub in the left HS patients was the right PCC (the flow-in hub the right dmPFC and the flow-out hub the right PCC), but there was no hub node in the semantic cognition network of patients with right HS. (iii) Subregions of the anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in the bilateral hemispheres were strongly connected in normal controls but partially interconnected in right HS patients and not interconnected in left HS patients.

(a) Left HS

(b) Normal controls

(c) Right HS