Abstracts

Performance on a Lexical Decision task in mexican patients with a diagnosis of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Abstract number : 1.415
Submission category : 11. Behavior/Neuropsychology/Language / 11A. Adult
Year : 2022
Submission ID : 2232896
Source : www.aesnet.org
Presentation date : 12/3/2022 12:00:00 PM
Published date : Nov 22, 2022, 05:28 AM

Authors :
Daruni Vazquez Barron, MD, MSc – Centro Aura; Mario H. Vazquez Barron, BA – UNAM; David Trejo Martinez, BA, MSc – Hospital General de Mexico

Rationale: The objective is to compare the performance on a lexical decision task between patients with right and left temporal lobe epilepsy and controls.

Methods: A comparative, blinded, cross-sectional study was performed. Twenty patients (80% female) with a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy were recruited, 10 with left epileptic focus, 10 with right epileptic focus, 12 of them with language dominance ipsilateral to the focus and 20 controls, matched for age and education. A lexical decision test was designed and applied using Presentation software. Subsequently, the results of reaction times for words and nonwords were analyzed using a t-test.

Results: The means for response times for words and pseudowords, respectively, were: Controls 851.59 (±157.43) and 1344.57 (±318.31), Left Patients 1022.86 (±389.09) and 1401.31 (±434.59), Right Patients 888.69 (±204.28) and 1349.07 (±393.54). There were no significant differences between groups. The means for errors (%) for words and nonwords respectively were: Controls 0.20 (±0.64) and 13.12 (±15.17), Left Patients 6.04 (±12.47) and 12.70 (±11.68), Right Patients 0.41 (±0.87) and 13.53 (±15.99). There was a significant difference for errors in words between Left Patients and Controls (p= 0.005) and between Left and Right Patients (p=0.006). For Right Patients, there was no significant difference.

Conclusions: The results of our study show that Right temporal lobe epilepsy does not affect lexical decision. As for left temporal lobe epilepsy, although statistically Left Patients showed more errors in words, this was not consistent for all subjects, so we cannot attribute this difference to alterations in the temporal lobe produced by epilepsy. A larger sample is required to better assess this relationship. Some studies suggest that the inferior frontal gyrus might be involved in this task.

Funding: None
Behavior