title: Language and arithmetic--a study using the intracarotid amobarbital procedure.
abstract: The intracarotid amobarbital procedure is used as a standard procedure in presurgical evaluation to assess hemispheric lateralization of language and memory, but has not been applied to investigate numerical processing. Patients with medically intractable epilepsy (n=20) were consecutively recruited during a presurgical evaluation programme. All 14 patients with left-lateralized language showed better arithmetic performance with the left hemisphere (intracarotid amobarbital procedure right), while five out of six patients with bilateral or right-hemispheric language representation showed better performance with the right hemisphere (intracarotid amobarbital procedure left). Furthermore, in patients with left-lateralized language, an interaction between intracarotid amobarbital procedure and type of arithmetic operation was found. The study suggests a close association between language lateralization and hemispheric specialization for arithmetic processing.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Department of Neurology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria. margarete.delazer@uibk.ac.at
authors.forename: Margarete
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Delazer
authors.forename: Elfriede
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Karner
authors.forename: Iris
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Unterberger
authors.forename: Gerald
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Walser
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Waldenberger
authors.forename: Eugen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Trinka
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Benke
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000654:Amobarbital / Q000008:administration & dosage; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives / Q000008:administration & dosage; D007269:Injections, Intra-Arterial; D007802:Language; D007807:Language Tests; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects; D008875:Middle Aged; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D000654:Amobarbital