title: Sex differences in lateralization of semantic verbal fluency in temporal lobe epilepsy.
abstract: When differences exist, women tend to outperform men on measures of verbal fluency, possibly due to greater bilateral language representation. Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) have a higher rate of atypical cortical language representation than the general population, making them a population of interest for the study of language. For the current study, 78 TLE patients (51% male, 51% left temporal focus) underwent pre-surgical neuropsychological evaluations. Retrospective data analyses investigated the impact of seizure laterality and sex on letter and semantic verbal fluency. Results indicated an interaction between sex and laterality for semantic, but not letter, verbal fluency. Males with left TLE exhibited significantly worse semantic fluency than males with right TLE, whereas females' semantic fluency did not differ by seizure focus. These data indicate that females with TLE may indeed engage in more bilateral hemispheric processing of semantic verbal fluency, whereas males may be more reliant on left temporal cortical function for this task.
authors.affiliation: University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine, 3515 East Fletcher Avenue, MDC Box 14, Tampa, FL 33613, USA. Electronic address: keichsta@health.usf.edu.
authors.forename: Katie E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Eichstaedt
authors.affiliation: South Texas Veterans Healthcare System, Psychology Service (116B), 7400 Merton Minter Blvd., San Antonio, TX 78229, USA. Electronic address: Jason.Soble@va.gov.
authors.forename: Jason R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Soble
authors.affiliation: University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine, 3515 East Fletcher Avenue, MDC Box 14, Tampa, FL 33613, USA; James A. Haley Veterans Administration Medical Center, Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences (116B), 13000 Bruce B. Downs Blvd., Tampa, FL 33602, USA. Electronic address: jkamper@health.usf.edu.
authors.forename: Joel E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Kamper
authors.affiliation: University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine, 3515 East Fletcher Avenue, MDC Box 14, Tampa, FL 33613, USA. Electronic address: abozorg@health.usf.edu.
authors.forename: Ali M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bozorg
authors.affiliation: University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine, 3515 East Fletcher Avenue, MDC Box 14, Tampa, FL 33613, USA. Electronic address: sbenbadi@health.usf.edu.
authors.forename: Selim R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Benbadis
authors.affiliation: University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine, 3515 East Fletcher Avenue, MDC Box 14, Tampa, FL 33613, USA. Electronic address: fvale@health.usf.edu.
authors.forename: Fernando L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Vale
authors.affiliation: University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine, 3515 East Fletcher Avenue, MDC Box 14, Tampa, FL 33613, USA. Electronic address: mschoenb@health.usf.edu.
authors.forename: Mike R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Schoenberg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004833:Epilepsy, Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012660:Semantics; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Epilepsy; Language; Lateralization; Sex; Verbal fluency