title: Role of functional MRI in presurgical evaluation of memory function in temporal lobe epilepsy.
abstract: Many diagnostic tools have been employed to predict the likelihood of a postoperative memory decline after a standard temporal lobectomy, including the intracarotid amobarbital testing (IAT) or Wada, regarded as the gold standard test for over the past half a century. Functional MRI (fMRI) is also a promising tool in that regard. Its routine use to predict the postoperative memory decline has been limited because of the varied study paradigms, discrepancies in analysis, and interpretation of the results. Based on the existing literatures, fMRI cannot replace IAT for the routine presurgical evaluation of the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) yet. Large multicentre studies with a panel of memory test are required to determine the full potential of fMRI and use it reliably to replace IAT in the routine clinical practice. In this paper, we review various aspects of memory fMRI, including the experimental designs, data analysis, and findings.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Clinical Neurological Sciences, Medical Biophysics, Medical Imaging and Psychology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada N6A 5A5.
authors.forename: Chusak
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Limotai
authors.forename: Seyed M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Mirsattari