MRI HIPPOCAMPAL VOLUME AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY IN EPILEPSY SURGERY

A review is provided of recent findings on relationships between neuro cognitive test data and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-determined hi ppocampal volumes in nonlesional temporal lobectomy patients, The diff erence between the right and left hippocampal volumes is correlated wi th postoperative verbal memory in left temporal lobectomy patients who do not have lesional pathology, MRI hippocampal volume data are not a ssociated with measures of executive functioning or naming, Sex differ ences have been found for verbal memory outcome as women have better v erbal memory following left temporal lobectomy, Sex differences have a lso been found in the relationships between verbal and visual memory, and hippocampal volume data, The systematic combination of MRI-acquire d morphological data and neuropsychological test data may further our understanding of neurocognitive function, and provide clinically usefu l data for counseling epilepsy surgery patients, The current data are promising with regard to prediction of memory outcome following tempor al lobectomy, but they do not yet allow for prediction of specific ind ividual patient outcomes, Rather, the currently available data support counseling patients based on the memory outcome of others with simila r characteristics.