NORMALIZATION OF CONTRALATERAL METABOLIC FUNCTION FOLLOWING TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY DEMONSTRATED BY H-1 MAGNETIC-RESONANCE SPECTROSCOPIC IMAGING

We studied 10 medically intractable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patie nts prior to surgery using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic ima ging (MRSI) to localize seizure foci. We found significantly elevated creatine/N-acetylaspartate (Cr/NAA) unilaterally in 8 and bilaterally in 2 patients. Five patients have been studied again 1 year after surg ery. In the 2 patients with bilateral temporal seizure onsets, MRSI sh owed normalization of Cr/NAA in the unoperated contralateral tissue fo llowing surgical elimination of seizures. This study suggests that met abolic recovery can occur in contralateral temporal areas following su rgical treatment of partial epilepsy.