TY - JOUR
T1 - Structured cueing on a semantic fluency task differentiates patients with temporal versus frontal lobe seizure onset
AU - Drane, Daniel L.
AU - Lee, Gregory P.
AU - Cech, Helen
AU - Huthwaite, Justin S.
AU - Ojemann, George A.
AU - Ojemann, Jeffrey G.
AU - Loring, David W.
AU - Meador, Kimford J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Parts of this article were originally presented at the 31st Annual Meeting of the International Neuropsychological Society, 2003, Honolulu, Hawaii. Preparation of this article was supported in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), National Institutes of Health (NIH) (Grant K23 NSO49100-01). This study was approved by the institutional review board (Application 05-5738-G 01) of the University of Washington Medical School.
PY - 2006/9
Y1 - 2006/9
N2 - Patients with frontal lobe dysfunction (e.g., Huntington's disease) reportedly benefit more from cueing on measures of semantic fluency than do patients with damage to temporal lobe structures (e.g., Alzheimer's disease). This differential benefit from cueing suggests that different neurocognitive functions are impaired in these two groups. Patients with frontal lobe dysfunction are presumed to have difficulty with the executive aspects of this generative fluency task, whereas patients with temporal lobe impairment are limited by deficits in semantic memory. We studied the performance of patients with complex partial seizures of frontal or temporal lobe onset, as determined by video/EEG monitoring, on standard and cued measures of semantic fluency administered in a counterbalanced sequence across groups. These groups did not differ significantly in terms of age, education, gender, age at seizure onset, total number of antiepileptic drugs, or IQ, and all patients subsequently underwent surgery for intractable epilepsy. Patients with frontal lobe dysfunction (FL group) performed significantly worse than patients with temporal lobe impairment (TL group) on the standard semantic fluency paradigm (TL group: M = 18.4, SD = 4.7; FL group: M = 11.1, SD = 5.3), t (27) = -3.75, P < 0.001. Nevertheless, results of an ANCOVA demonstrated that the FL group showed significantly greater performance improvement than the TL group when provided with a cued semantic fluency format, even after controlling for baseline differences in ability on the standard semantic fluency task (TL group: M = 0.45, SD = 3.8; FL M = 9.4, SD = 5.1), F (1, 29) = 12.37, P = 0.002. These findings support previous research suggesting that frontal and temporal structures contribute uniquely to semantic generative fluency and suggest that using a combination of standard and cued semantic fluency tasks may help confirm localization of seizure onset in partial epilepsy by localizing the associated cognitive dysfunction.
AB - Patients with frontal lobe dysfunction (e.g., Huntington's disease) reportedly benefit more from cueing on measures of semantic fluency than do patients with damage to temporal lobe structures (e.g., Alzheimer's disease). This differential benefit from cueing suggests that different neurocognitive functions are impaired in these two groups. Patients with frontal lobe dysfunction are presumed to have difficulty with the executive aspects of this generative fluency task, whereas patients with temporal lobe impairment are limited by deficits in semantic memory. We studied the performance of patients with complex partial seizures of frontal or temporal lobe onset, as determined by video/EEG monitoring, on standard and cued measures of semantic fluency administered in a counterbalanced sequence across groups. These groups did not differ significantly in terms of age, education, gender, age at seizure onset, total number of antiepileptic drugs, or IQ, and all patients subsequently underwent surgery for intractable epilepsy. Patients with frontal lobe dysfunction (FL group) performed significantly worse than patients with temporal lobe impairment (TL group) on the standard semantic fluency paradigm (TL group: M = 18.4, SD = 4.7; FL group: M = 11.1, SD = 5.3), t (27) = -3.75, P < 0.001. Nevertheless, results of an ANCOVA demonstrated that the FL group showed significantly greater performance improvement than the TL group when provided with a cued semantic fluency format, even after controlling for baseline differences in ability on the standard semantic fluency task (TL group: M = 0.45, SD = 3.8; FL M = 9.4, SD = 5.1), F (1, 29) = 12.37, P = 0.002. These findings support previous research suggesting that frontal and temporal structures contribute uniquely to semantic generative fluency and suggest that using a combination of standard and cued semantic fluency tasks may help confirm localization of seizure onset in partial epilepsy by localizing the associated cognitive dysfunction.
KW - Frontal and temporal lobe epilepsy
KW - Localization of seizures
KW - Semantic fluency
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U2 - 10.1016/j.yebeh.2006.06.010
DO - 10.1016/j.yebeh.2006.06.010
M3 - Article
C2 - 16870509
AN - SCOPUS:33747852305
SN - 1525-5050
VL - 9
SP - 339
EP - 344
JO - Epilepsy and Behavior
JF - Epilepsy and Behavior
IS - 2
ER -