Neuroanatomical Structures Associated with Naming Deficits in Postoperative Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
Abstract number :
3.353
Submission category :
11. Behavior/Neuropsychology/Language / 11A. Adult
Year :
2022
Submission ID :
2204805
Source :
www.aesnet.org
Presentation date :
12/5/2022 12:00:00 PM
Published date :
Nov 22, 2022, 05:26 AM
Authors :
Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht, MD, PhD – Medical University of South Carolina; Natalie Voets, PhD – University of Oxford; Rebecca Roth, BA – Emory University; Kathryn Davis, MD, MS – University of Pennsylvania; Nigel Pedersen, MD, PhD – Emory University; Deqiang Qiu, PhD – Emory University; Kelsey Hewitt, PsyD – Emory University; Jon Willie, MD, PhD – Washington University in St. Louis; David Loring, PhD – Emory University; Erik Kaestner, PhD – University of California San Diego; Robert Gross, MD, PhD – Emory University; Ruben Kuzniecky, MD – Northwell / Hofstra University; Carrie McDonald, PhD – University of California San Diego; Julius Fridriksson, PhD – University of South Carolina; Leonardo Bonilha, MD, PhD – Emory University; Daniel Drane, PhD – Emory University
Rationale: Picture naming relies on a widespread network of anatomical structures, which explains why naming deficits can be detected across different types of neurologic disorders. Here, we aimed to comprehensively evaluate the critical temporal lobe neuroanatomy associated with naming in a visual confrontation task by applying a combination of classical voxel-based symptom mapping with a novel approach to infer white matter disconnections across different brain regions. To do this, we studied a cohort of patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) who underwent surgery. Indeed, surgery can lead to seizure control in many patients but removal (e.g., anterior temporal lobectomy) or destruction (e.g., laser ablation) of temporal brain areas is often associated with post-operative language deficits, particularly in naming. We hypothesized that disconnections of different sub-regions within the temporal lobes would be associated with anomia after TLE surgery.
Methods: We tested our hypothesis in a cohort of 56 patients with TLE who underwent epilepsy surgery applying lesion-symptom mapping with pre- vs. post-operative performance changes on the Boston Naming Test.
Results: Our findings reveal that the integrity of a temporal lobe network linking the temporal pole, basal temporal structures, and lateral temporal language regions is crucial for preserving visual naming performance in patients with TLE undergoing surgery to treat seizures.
Conclusions: These findings reconcile seemingly divergent evidence of previous reports indicating the isolated role of these regions in naming, suggesting that they belong to the same structural network which, when disrupted due to surgery, can lead to the emergence of anomia.
Funding: This study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) 1R01NS110347-01A (EG, LB, DLD, KAD, REG, RK), R01NS088748 (DLD, NLV, NPP, DQ, JTW, DWL, REG, LB), K23NSO49100 (DLD, NLV, DWL, REG), K02NS070960 (DLD, NLV, DWL, JTW, REG), L30NS080215 (DLD), and a Shared Instrumentation Grant (S10: Grant 1@10OD016413) to the Emory University Center for Systems Imaging Core. DLD is also supported by the NIH National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) R01MH118514.
Behavior