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Relationship of Age at Onset, Chronologic Age, and Adequacy of Preoperative Performance to Verbal Memory Change After Anterior Temporal Lobectomy
Author(s) -
Hermann Bruce P.,
Seidenberg Michael,
Haltiner Allan,
Wyler Allen R.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
epilepsia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.687
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1528-1167
pISSN - 0013-9580
DOI - 10.1111/j.1528-1157.1995.tb00972.x
Subject(s) - anterior temporal lobectomy , semantic memory , episodic memory , recall , psychology , audiology , verbal memory , epilepsy , epilepsy surgery , medicine , cognition , cognitive psychology , neuroscience
Summary We examined the relationship of age of onset of epilepsy, chronological age at time of operation, and adequacy of preoperative memory performance to pre‐ to postoperative verbal memory decline. Patients who underwent left (n = 50) or right (n = 51) anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) were administered tests of verbal episodic (list learning, paragraph recall) and semantic memory (visual naming, vocabulary), both preoperatively and 6 months postoperatively. As a group, left ATL patients showed the classic selective decrease on measures of episodic but not semantic memory. However, examination of episodic memory outcome showed considerable individual variability. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that both later age at onset and older chronologic age were significant and selective predictors of episodic memory decrease for left ATL patients. Adequacy of preoperative memory performance was a nonspecific predictor, associated with decrease in postoperative memory performance for both left and right ATL patients and for multiple types of memory indices. The clinical and theoretical implications are discussed.