Independent recovery of memory and language functioning during the Intracarotid Sodium Amytal Test

Memory and language recovery during the Intracarotid Sodium Amytal Test (IA P) was investigated in 49 left-hemisphere-dominant patients with unilateral temporal epileptic seizure foci. Memory was assessed by presenting items ( words, objects, and faces) immediately after injection, and testing for rec ognition memory 10 min after motoric recovery. To assess language the patie nts responded verbally to the same items during memory presentation. Memory for the individual items was found to be independent of their presentation order and language functioning was impaired only with the dominant-hemisph ere injection, recovering during the presentation of the memory items. Thes e results suggest that the encoding of material remains at a constant level throughout the initial active phase of the IAP, whereas language functioni ng recovers independently.