WISCONSIN CARD SORTING TEST-PERFORMANCE BEFORE AND AFTER TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY

Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) performance was studied before and after patients underwent right (n = 34) or left (n = 34) temporal lobe ctomy. Patients had hemisphere language dominance judged on intracarot id amobarbital testing and were free of space-occupying lesional patho logy by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Right and left lobectomy pat ients did not differ before or after surgery on WCST parameters: categ ories completed, perseverative errors, total correct responses, total errors, nonperseverative errors, and perseverative responses. There wa s no relationship between WCST performance and MRI-determined hippocam pal volumes or age of recurrent seizure onset. These findings are cont rary to previous reports, suggesting the presence of laterality effect s on preoperative WCST performance, relationships between WCST perform ance and age of seizure onset, and association of WCST performance and degree of mesial temporal sclerosis. Data from this study are consist ent with a report on a larger group of temporal lobectomy patients, wh ich found no laterality effect on WCST performance. The WCST seems to be of no value when attempting to lateralize seizure onset in nonlesio nal temporal lobe epilepsy.