One-year postoperative autobiographical memory following unilateral temporal lobectomy for control of intractable epilepsy.
OBJECTIVE
To examine the effects of temporal lobectomy (TL), particularly concerning its lateralization.


METHODS
Patients completed autobiographical memory tests, preoperatively and 1-year postoperatively.


RESULTS
(a) right TL (RTL) patients recalled significantly more memories from the year after surgery than from the year before TL; (b) their pre to postoperative improvement on autobiographical memory scores was positively correlated to improvement of delayed story recall scores; and (c) 1 year after surgery, performance on recent personal memory recall was normalized for RTL patients only.


CONCLUSIONS
We suggest that, in the absence of recurrent seizures, the relative integrity of the left hemisphere together with residual right hemisphere structures sustains postoperative autobiographical memory consolidation, at least 1 year postoperatively.
Voltzenlogel
Virginie
V
Neuropsychology Unit, UPS 858 CNRS and University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg, France.
Despres
Olivier
O
Vignal
Jean-Paul
JP
Kehrli
Pierre
P
Manning
Lilianne
L
D000328:Adult; D038481:Anterior Temporal Lobectomy; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011184:Postoperative Period; D012008:Recurrence; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D016896:Treatment Outcome