Cognition, Behavior, and Memory
Author: MARIANA BENDERSKY BENDERSKY | email: mbendersky@fmed.uba.ar
Mariana Bendersky 1°, Bautista Elizalde Acevedo 3°, Carolina Lomlodjian 2°, Silvia Kochen 2°, Lucia Alba-Ferrara 2°
1° Living Anatomy Laboratory, III Normal Anatomy Dept, University of Buenos Aires
2° ENyS, CONICET
3° Universidad Austral, IIMT (Instituto de Investigaciones en Medicina Traslacional)
Idiomatic expressions (IE) are a kind of pragmatic language whose meaning is different from the sum of the meaning of their words. TLE, the most frequent of the focal epilepsies, can be associated with several cognitive symptoms, including pragmatic language impairment. But many patients manage to maintain these language skills. This compensation may depend on greater recruitment of accessory areas and creation of new connections. This network reorganization for this specific type of language in patients with TLE has not yet been studied. This fMRI study will investigate neural networks activated in patients with chronic mesial TLE, compared to normal subjects, for IE understanding. Methods: 20 controls, 18 patients with right TLE (RTLE) and 15 patients with left TLE (LTLE) were asked to select one of 4 possible meanings for IE or literal sentences. fMRI scans were performed in a 3.0T scanner and processed by SPM 12 comparing IE vs. literal sentences. Results: All participants performed the task above chance level. IE activated a bilateral, slightly right-sided fronto-temporal network. When comparing LTLE vs. controls or RTLE vs. controls we found activation in additional frontal, temporal and insular areas of both hemispheres. Discussion: Both RTLE and LTLE patients showed reorganization of the networks for pragmatic language. Since some of these patients are candidates for epilepsy surgery, it is important to know these compensatory networks recruited so as not to harm them.