Looking beyond lesions for causes of neuropsychological impairment in epilepsy

Abstract

ObjectivePatients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) are similar in their epileptology regardless of whether they have a lesion evident on MRI; this study aims to prospectively clarify whether they are also similar in their neuropsychological profiles.MethodsParticipants comprised 152 adults: 79 patients with TLE and 73 healthy controls. Patients and controls did not differ in age, sex, or education (p > 0.05). Sixty-two percent of patients had an MRI-resolvable lesion (39% with presumed hippocampal sclerosis [HS-TLE], 61% with a lesion other than HS [MRI-positive TLE]); the remaining 38% of patients were lesion-negative. Psychometric measures well established in epilepsy were used.ResultsRel..