Abstracts

Rationale: The extent and pattern of memory deficit in children with epilepsy has not been fully delineated. We examined the specific pattern of memory deficit in a pediatric localization related epilepsy (LRE) population with normal MRIs to exclude contribution of underlying pathology while also controlling for intelligence. Methods: We studied 42 children with LRE (mean age: 8.9yrs; n=20 male; mean age of seizure onset: 5.6yrs) that were closely matched on age, gender and IQ to 42 typically developing children (mean age: 9.0yrs, n=19 male). Intelligence was measured using the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence. Visual memory was assessed by the Dot Location subtest of the Children’s Memory Scale. Verbal memory was assessed using a story memory task (Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning) and a list learning task (California Verbal Learning Test for Children). Post-hoc executive functioning was measured using the BRIEF, a parent rating scale of everyday executive function. Multivariate analyses of variance were conducted to test for group differences across memory measures. Performance differences within patient group due to epilepsy characteristics including age of seizure onset, epilepsy duration and AED therapy were also examined. Results: Patients performed worse than controls on immediate and delayed recall trials across visual memory (p<.01) and list learning (p<.05) tasks. For Story Memory, immediate memory was also compromised in patients (p<.01); while delayed recall showed a trend toward significance (p=.10) with patients recalling fewer items than controls. Patients performed comparably to controls on recognition trials for both stories (p=.58) and list learning (p=.17). No significant associations were found for preliminary post-hoc analyses of patient clinical variables and memory performance. Given the equivalent performance on memory recognition tasks yet impaired recall ability, executive functioning was hypothesized post hoc as a suspected domain at play. Patients exhibited elevated scores across the BRIEF overall indicating executive control deficits (p=.05); Working Memory (p=.000), Initiation (p=.001), Monitoring (p=.003) and Planning/Organization (p=.000) were the most significantly different from controls.