title: Unimpaired sentence comprehension after anterior temporal cortex resection.
abstract: Functional imaging studies have demonstrated involvement of the anterior temporal cortex in sentence comprehension. It is unclear, however, whether the anterior temporal cortex is essential for this function. We studied two aspects of sentence comprehension, namely syntactic and prosodic comprehension in temporal lobe epilepsy patients who were candidates for resection of the anterior temporal lobe.
  
  
  METHODS
  Temporal lobe epilepsy patients (n=32) with normal (left) language dominance were tested on syntactic and prosodic comprehension before and after removal of the anterior temporal cortex. The prosodic comprehension test was also compared with performance of healthy control subjects (n=47) before surgery.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Overall, temporal lobe epilepsy patients did not differ from healthy controls in syntactic and prosodic comprehension before surgery. They did perform less well on an affective prosody task. Post-operative testing revealed that syntactic and prosodic comprehension did not change after removal of the anterior temporal cortex.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The unchanged performance on syntactic and prosodic comprehension after removal of the anterior temporal cortex suggests that this area is not indispensable for sentence comprehension functions in temporal epilepsy patients. Potential implications for the postulated role of the anterior temporal lobe in the healthy brain are discussed.
authors: Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, Department of Neurosurgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. k.h.kho@umcutrecht.nl
authors: K H
authors: KH
authors: Kho
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Indefrey
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Hagoort
authors: C W M
authors: CW
authors: van Veelen
authors: P C
authors: PC
authors: van Rijen
authors: N F
authors: NF
authors: Ramsey
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery