title: Evidence of memory impairment in asymptomatic individuals with hippocampal atrophy.
abstract: Our objective was to investigate if MRI-determined hippocampal atrophy (HA) is associated with memory deficits independent of seizure frequency. We studied three groups of individuals: (1) 10 asymptomatic first-degree relatives of patients with familial mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (FMTLE), all of them with HA; (2) 14 patients with benign FMTLE, 9 with HA, and 5 with normal hippocampal volumes; and (3) 16 patients with refractory FMTLE, all but one with HA. HA was associated with lower scores on general memory (P=0.015), verbal memory (P=0.020), and delayed recall (P=0.028), even in those with no or few seizures in life. General linear model analyses showed that the interaction between seizure outcome and HA was associated with worse verbal memory (P=0.029), visual memory (P=0.022), and delayed recall (P=0.039) as compared with each of these factors independently. Our findings suggest that seizures and HA are independently associated with memory impairment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology FCM, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil.
authors.forename: Andréa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alessio
authors.forename: Eliane
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.forename: Benito P
authors.initials: BP
authors.lastname: Damasceno
authors.forename: Iscia
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Lopes-Cendes
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cendes
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001284:Atrophy / Q000150:complications; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000150:complications* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data