Language and arithmetic--a study using the intracarotid amobarbital procedure.
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.
Delazer
Margarete
M
Clinical Department of Neurology, Innsbruck Medical University, Innsbruck, Austria. margarete.delazer@uibk.ac.at
Karner
Elfriede
E
Unterberger
Iris
I
Walser
Gerald
G
Waldenberger
Peter
P
Trinka
Eugen
E
Benke
Thomas
T
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*
D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D000654:Amobarbital