The right hemisphere?s contribution to discourse processing: A study in temporal lobe epilepsy

C. LOMLOMDJIAN, C.P. MUNERA, D LOW, V TERPILUK, P SOLIS, V ABUSAMRA, S KOCHEN

BRAIN AND LANGUAGE

ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2017 vol. 171 p. 31 - 41

0093-934X

Objective: Discourse skills - in which the right hemisphere has an important role - enables verbal communicationby selecting contextually relevant information and integrating it coherently to infer the correctmeaning. However, language research in epilepsy has focused on single word analysis related mainlyto left hemisphere processing. The purpose of this study was to investigate discourse abilities in patientswith right lateralized medial temporal lobe epilepsy (RTLE) by comparing their performance to that ofpatients with left temporal lobe epilepsy (LTLE).Methods: 74 pharmacoresistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients were evaluated: 34 with RTLE and40 with LTLE. Subjects underwent a battery of tests that measure comprehension and production of conversationaland narrative discourse. Disease related variables and general neuropsychological data wereevaluated.Results: The RTLE group presented deficits in interictal conversational and narrative discourse, with a disintegratedspeech, lack of categorization and misinterpretation of social meaning. LTLE group, on theother hand, showed a tendency to lower performance in logical-temporal sequencing.Significance: RTLE patients showed discourse deficits which have been described in right hemispheredamaged patients due to other etiologies. Medial and anterior temporal lobe structures appear to linksemantic, world knowledge, and social cognition associated areas to construct a contextually relatedcoherent meaning.