Readers of JINS are aware that the epilepsies are common, costly, and complex. Among the more common comorbidities are cognitive and neuropsychiatric disorders. The potential etiologies of these disorders include factors related to the cause, course, and treatment of the epilepsy, which may exert their effects, at least in part, through alterations in brain structure, metabolism, blood flow, and other dimensions of brain integrity. These effects can be captured and quantified by various neuroimaging techniques and greater familiarity with the diversity of neuroimaging approaches to epilepsy may open a variety of avenues of investigation.

To that end, this second edition of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Epilepsy: Neuroimaging Technique, edited by Drs. Kuzniecky and Jackson, will probably become the standard reference text on neuroimaging in epilepsy. It follows the very well received first edition and captures the surge of interest in neuroimaging and the application of these techniques to epilepsy. The first three chapters are introductory in nature and provide a helpful introduction to the epilepsies, the principles of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and a wonderful review of brain anatomy written by Duvernoy. The text then turns to a series of chapters that review temporal lobe epilepsy with particular attention to the hippocampus (77 pages) and extra-temporal lobe, frontal and occipitoparietal epilepsies (20 pages). The chapters that follow examine epilepsy from an etiological viewpoint (e.g., vascular/ischemic injury, infectious/inflammatory conditions), and with respect to various malformations of cortical development.

Various neuroimaging approaches are systematically reviewed, including advanced structural analytic techniques as applied to epilepsy (e.g., shape analysis, cortical thickness, voxel based morphometry, and texture analysis) authored by Andrea Bernasconi. Michael Saling addresses the interface between neuroimaging and neuropsychology with a careful analysis of the impact of epilepsy on discrete memory systems and their neuroanatomical correlates in epilepsy, along with pertinent considerations in surgical planning and outcome. Binder and Detre then review the topic of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in epilepsy with an expected emphasis on language and memory function.

Remaining chapters examine other techniques including MR neurophysiology [simultaneous electroencaphalogram (EEG) and fMRI, Waites and colleagues], MR diffusion and perfusion (Connelly), MR spectroscopy (Hetherington and colleagues), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT, Rowe), positron emission tomography (PET, Juhasz and colleagues), and magnetoencephalography (Knowlton and Sutherling).

The chapters are well written, authoritative, clinically significant, and the illustrations are generally excellent. The book as a whole presents a wealth of information regarding how these various techniques lead to better insight regarding the impact of epilepsy on brain integrity. The ways in which these techniques may lead to insights into the cognitive and neuropsychiatric complications of epilepsy should be clear. Overall, this edited text will serve as a very useful clinical and research reference text.