The proposed research is designed to provide an understanding of long- term behavioral effects of temporal lobectomy surgery for intractable- epilepsy. the occurrence of intractable-seizures is well-known to impact negatively upon several quality of life domains, including cognition, emotion and social function. Surgical intervention is now an accepted treatment for epilepsy which is refractory to pharmacologic therapy, and temporal lobectomy is the most frequently performed epilepsy surgery. The clinical results of such surgery on seizure control have been impressive. However, reports on the behavioral sequelae of surgery for epilepsy have been limited, with most studies aimed at only the first year after surgery. No comprehensive, long-term follow-up of the behavioral effects of temporal lobe surgery are available. Hence, we plan to undertake a systematic re-assessment of patients who had undergone temporal lobe surgery for intractable-epilepsy at one-, five-, ten-, and fifteen-years ago. These patients had all participated in a standardized clinical and psychological research protocol at our institution and have available the results of routine diagnostic evaluations done prior to surgery. Additional groups of epilepsy patients who (a) participated in pre-surgical evaluations but did not quality for/or refused surgery or (b) had extra-temporal lobe resections will also be followed for comparison. The proposed work will provide information regarding the long-term cognitive, emotional, and social effects of temporal lobectomy surgery as well as aiding in identification of those critical factors affecting clinical outcome. Such results will be invaluable to clinicians, neurobehaviorists, and general healthcare- providers involved in patient management decisions regarding surgical treatment for epilepsy. Moreover, the proposed data bank will provide new direction in developing more effective patient-rehabilitation services after surgery and may contribute to our further understanding of the sequelae and plasticity of human behaviors associated with specific brain lesions.
| Rausch, R; Kraemer, S; Pietras, C J et al. (2003) Early and late cognitive changes following temporal lobe surgery for epilepsy. Neurology 60:951-9 |
| Rausch, Rebecca (2002) Epilepsy surgery within the temporal lobe and its short-term and long-term effects on memory. Curr Opin Neurol 15:185-9 |
| Altshuler, L; Rausch, R; Delrahim, S et al. (1999) Temporal lobe epilepsy, temporal lobectomy, and major depression. J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 11:436-43 |
| Langfitt, J T; Rausch, R (1996) Word-finding deficits persist after left anterotemporal lobectomy. Arch Neurol 53:72-6 |
