DEFICITS IN SPATIAL WORKING-MEMORY AFTER UNILATERAL TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY IN MAN

Forty neurosurgical patients and 20 controls were tested on a series o f computerized tasks (the executive golf, structured golf and rotate t asks) designed to investigate spatial working memory. As defined hy Ol ton [Spatial Abilities, Academic Press, New York, 1982], spatial worki ng memory involves the encoding of specific and contextual information within the spatial domain. Right it temporal lobectomy patients were significantly impaired on all three tasks, while the left temporal lob ectomy patients showed a less significant overall impairment only on t he structured golf task. Although there was no statistically significa nt differences between the two patient groups on the three tasks, the results point towards a robust deficit in spatial memory associated wi th right temporal lobectomy. The results provide further evidence for the role of the mesial temporal lobe structures in the processing and encoding of spatial information.