Abstracts

Rationale: Anxiety and depression are commonly observed in children with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). A recent study at our center demonstrated that higher endorsement of depressive symptoms was associated with poorer visual and verbal recall ability for children with left (but not right) TLE both before and after temporal lobectomy (Haut et al., 2007). The goal of the current study was to determine if anxiety is also related to memory performance in children with TLE.Methods: Thirty three children and adolescents (mean age = 12 years, range 7-15) with intractable TLE (left = 18; right = 15) completed measures of visual and verbal memory (Children’s Memory Scale; CMS) and a self-report questionnaire evaluating anxiety symptoms (Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale; RCMAS) prior to and following temporal lobectomy. Bivariate correlations between the memory indices of the CMS and the subscales (physiological anxiety, worry/oversensitivity, and social concerns/concentration) and total score of the RCMAS were calculated to examine the relationship between anxiety symptoms and memory performance.Results: Presurgically, greater severity of total anxiety symptoms was associated with poorer memory performance on all CMS indices, except the Visual Delayed Memory Index, in children with left (r = -.43 to -.58) but not right TLE (r = .01 to -.21). Following surgery, total anxiety was only related to performance on the Visual Immediate Memory Index in patients with left, but not right, TLE. Examination of the RCMAS subscale scores prior to surgery indicated that the relationship between anxiety and memory performance observed in children with left TLE was strongest on the physiological anxiety (r = -.39 to -.67) and worry/oversensitivity (r = -.39 to -.59) subscales. No significant correlations were found between memory scores and the social concerns/concentration subscale (r = -.22 to -.38). Conclusions: Results demonstrate that a negative relationship exists between presurgical anxiety and memory performance, but only in children with left temporal lobe epilepsy. Results are consistent with recent findings at our center suggesting that depression is related to memory performance in patients with left TLE. These results suggest that anxiety, in addition to depression, should be considered when interpreting memory test performance in children with temporal lobe epilepsy, particularly if seizures are arising from the left temporal lobe.