Abstract
The intracarotid amobarbital procedure (IAP) was performed on 56 patients with intractable complex-partial epilepsy who were candidates for temporal lobectomy. Seizure focus was lateralized to one hemisphere, as determined by surface EEG recordings and MRI evidence of temporal lobe disease. IAP memory items were presented following injection of 125 mg of sodium amytal into the internal carotid artery. Verbal, Nonverbal, Design, Pictorial, and Total memory scores were calculated based on recall/recognition of memory stimuli following drug recovery. Poorer memory was observed in the hemisphere ipsilateral to seizure focus on all memory scores. The Total Memory Score was the best memory measure, correctly classifying the largest number of patients. Using optimal cut-off scores on this measure, 75% of the patients with left hemisphere seizure focus and 79% of the patients with right seizure focus were correctly classified. There was a definite tendency for the dominant hemisphere to outperform the non-dominant. This must be taken into account in arriving at optimal cut-off points.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 243-248 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Epilepsy Research |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 1996 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was supported in part by NIH-NINDS Grant PSONS16308. The authors wish to thank Elizabeth Destafney and John Rarick for their help with data collection and data base setup. We are grateful to Dr. Michael Risinger for his insightful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
Keywords
- epilepsy
- intracarotid amobarbital procedure
- neuropsychological assessment
- wada