Predicting the psychosocial outcome of epilepsy surgery: A longitudinal perspective on the 'burden of normality'.

Good seizure outcomes and good psychosocial outcomes following epilepsy surgery do not necessarily follow one from the other. This study explored the relationship between several presurgical psychosocial characteristics and postsurgical quality-of-life outcomes. The study aimed to develop the concept of 'the burden of normality' and identify risk factors for a poor psychosocial outcome that could be targeted with ameliorative presurgery cognitive behavioral techniques.

Can temporal lobe epilepsy surgery ameliorate accelerated long-term forgetting?

Accelerated long-term forgetting (ALF) is a relatively newly identified phenomenon in neuropsychology which has been associated with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). ALF is characterised by intact acquisition and retention of memories over delays of minutes and hours, but abnormally fast forgetting over delays of 24h or more. The causes of ALF are unknown; however disruption of "slow" consolidation processes through seizure activity in the temporal lobes is proposed as a possible explanation.

The base rate of Wada test failure.

Although functional brain imaging can lateralize language functioning and has the potential to assess the functional integrity of the mesial temporal lobe memory structures, imaging protocols are not currently available for clinical use. Assessing the risk of post-epilepsy surgery memory decline is an important part of treatment planning, and the Wada test remains the current technique. The Wada test is invasive and has limitations with respect to sensitivity and specificity.

A comparison of emotional and cognitive intelligence in people with and without temporal lobe epilepsy.

Medial temporal lobe structures have been hypothesized to be important in emotional intelligence (EI) and social cognition. There is some evidence associating temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) with impairments in social cognition. This study aimed to establish whether TLE is also associated with deficits in EI.

Investigation of social and emotion information processing in temporal lobe epilepsy with ictal fear.

This study examined whether patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and ictal fear (IF) show emotion recognition deficits similar to those associated with amygdala damage. Three groups of patients (13 with TLE and IF, 14 with TLE and nonfear auras (non-IF), and 10 with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE)) completed tests of visual and face processing, face emotion recognition and social judgment, together with measures of psychological adjustment (Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale; SCL-90-R) and Quality of Life (QOLIE-31). All three epilepsy groups had fear recognition deficits, with relatively greater impairments in the IF group.

A review of neuropsychological services in the United Kingdom for patients being considered for epilepsy surgery.

We report a review of the current practice of neuropsychologists working within epilepsy surgery services. The aim of the review was to examine areas of diversity and consensus across current national service provision and to examine progress in service delivery since a previous survey in 1994. Sixteen centres provided information via a questionnaire on three areas of clinical practice: pre- and post-surgery neuropsychological protocols; the intracarotid sodium amytal protocol; patient and family expectations and psychological health, in addition to examining aspects of the context of clinical practice such as the role and experience of the psychologist and future service priorities.