title: Language tasks used for the presurgical assessment of epileptic patients with MEG.
abstract: Determining the language dominant hemisphere and the intrahemispheric localization of this function are imperative in the planning of neurosurgical procedures in epileptic patients. New noninvasive diagnostic techniques are being developed to reduce the risks associated with more invasive techniques. The aim of this paper is to review the different protocols for lateralizing and/or localizing language functions using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a noninvasive technique. The reviewed studies include control and patient populations using various protocols which employ different expressive and receptive language tasks. The overall findings reveal high concordance between MEG and the intracarotid amobarbital test (IAT). Moreover, MEG allows intrahemispheric localization of receptive and expressive language functions. However, the different language tasks used with MEG, whether receptive or expressive, appear to activate the left temporal more than frontal areas. The best task to assess language comprehension in both adults and children appears to be a word recognition task. A verbal fluency task could be used to test language production in children and a verb generation task in adults.
authors.affiliation: Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition, Université de Montréal, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: Mona
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pirmoradi
authors.forename: Renée
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Béland
authors.forename: Dang K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.forename: Benoit A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Bacon
authors.forename: Maryse
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lassonde
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000654:Amobarbital; D001037:Aphasia / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods; D002648:Child; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D007269:Injections, Intra-Arterial; D007807:Language Tests; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011300:Preoperative Care; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006993:Hypnotics and Sedatives; D000654:Amobarbital