Volumetric magnetic resonance imaging has become a routine investigati
on in the management of patients with chronic partial epilepsy. Howeve
r, even with the use of reformatted images, an underlying cause for ep
ilepsy cannot be found in many of these patients. We show that further
processing of the data, including three-dimensional reconstruction an
d quantitative analysis of the volume and complexity of the images in
three dimensions, reveals additional positive information in up to 75%
of patients. This may be useful for surgical planning, prognosticatio
n, and understanding of the structure and development of the human bra
in.