Introduction: Ulegyria is a cortical lesion affecting neighbouring vascular zones, which gives the convolutions a mushroom-like appearance. It is an important cause of occipital epilepsy. AIM. To correlate patients diagnosed clinically, electrically and morphometrically with ulegyria and epilepsy by comparing the thickness of the cortex in the zones affected by ulegyria with the normal cortical thickness reported in the literature and the average cortical thickness of healthy subjects.
Patients and methods: Ten patients with ulegyria confirmed by magnetic resonance imaging were included in the study; all of them were submitted to a clinical interview, an electroencephalographic study and cortical morphometric analysis based on volumetric T1 sequences.
Results: Findings included a predominance in males, neurodevelopmental retardation and epilepsy. Ulegyria was mainly parietooccipital, frequently bilateral, with statistically significant thinning of the cortical thickness in the site of the lesion and an increase in the thickness of the cortex in the areas surrounding the lesion.
Conclusions: We report on a series of patients with ulegyria with characteristics similar to those existing in the literature and by means of morphometry we detected an increase in the thickness of the cortex around the areas affected by ulegyria. These findings could point to the presence of adaptive neuroplasticity in the neurons that surround the scar tissue or they may be the result of mechanical changes of normal tissue in response to the loss of volume of the ulegyria-affected area, although these data need to be replicated in a study with a greater number of patients.