Abstract
Background and purpose
It is not known whether carbamazepine (CBZ; a drug widely used in neurology and psychiatry) influences the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) contrast changes induced by neuronal activation and measured by functional MRI (fMRI). We aimed to investigate the influence of CBZ on memory induced activation of the mesial temporal lobes in patients with symptomatic temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).Material and methods
Twenty-one individual patients with refractory symptomatic TLE with different CBZ serum levels and 20 healthy controls were studied using BOLD fMRI. Mesial temporal lobe (MTL) activation was induced by a task that is based on the retrieval of individually familiar visuo-spatial knowledge. The extent of significant MTL fMRI activation was measured and correlated with the CBZ serum level.Results
In TLE patients, the extent of significant fMRI activation over both MTL was negatively correlated to the CBZ serum level (Spearman r = -0.654, P Conclusions
In TLE patients, carbamazepine reduces the fMRI-detectable changes within the mesial temporal lobes as induced by effortful memory retrieval. FMRI appears to be suitable to study the effects of chronic drug treatment in patients with epilepsy.