Abstracts

Rationale: Many different regions such as hippocampus, parahippocampus, basal temporal language area and frontal cortex that contribute to memory encoding, storage and retrieval have been reported. Temporal lobe resection benefits many patients with refractory temporal lobe epilepsy, however may be complicated by memory impairments typically of verbal memory following temporal lobe resection.We studied normal subjects to define the regions contributing verbal memory function by means of 3.0-T functional MRI. Methods: MRI scanning was performed on a 3.0-T Philips Intera/Achieva series scanner. 12 normal subjects (range 22-38) underwent fMRI session each consisting of 3 AVLT and 3 MMS alternatively. Each session consisted of 16 words.A total of 6 sessions was performed at one try.Subjects were instructed to memorize the words coming from headphone during scanning. After scanning, subjects were given a memory test for the words received in the scanner and to attempt to recall as many of the words as possible.The number of correct responses over the 6 trials was used as a measure of verbal memory efficiency.Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify specific brain activations. All data were analyzed using Statistical Parametric Mapping software (SPM2). Results: There were 22 scans of brain activity per trial. Composite statistical activation maps superimposed on averaged structural MRI slices revealed significantly greater activation in different regions in each subjects. Conclusions: These findings suggest that temporal lobe excluding hippocampus and parahippocampus and frontal lobe can contributes to verbal memory function in each individuals.Further modification will be necessary to apply the patient. And we can apply these techniques for the patient with temporal lobe involvement to plan the surgical path during the regionectomy in the temporal lobe.