Abstracts

Rationale: There is an ongoing discussion about to what degree dichotic listening (DL) and functional MRI (fMRI) are leading to similar results in the determination of language lateralisation and whether both methods can be regarded as equivalent in the presurgical evaluation of epilepsy patients. Methods: Forty patients performed a Fused Words Dichotic Test (FWDT) and a fMRI with three different language paradigms. Depending on the lateralisation index and the ear advantage ratio each patients language was classified as left, bilateral or right (fMRI only). Results: In cases where the FWDT points to a left lateralised language we found a high conformity with the fMRI result. On the other hand we observed only a poor concordance between both methods after a bilateral FWDT result. Conclusions: When dichotic listening indicates a bilateral language representation in the presurgical assessment further investigation of hemispheric dominance with other methods (fMRI) is needed.