AMNESIA IN TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY PATIENTS - HISTORICAL-PERSPECTIVE AND REVIEW

Profound memory loss is a rare but serious complication of temporal-lo be surgery for the relief of medically intractable epilepsy. This pape r examines the characteristics of the patients who have been reported to become amnesic following temporal-lobe surgery over the last four d ecades. The critical role of the hippocampi in memory function are imp licated in autopsy studies and MRI investigations, but these cases sug gest that a range of memory impairments result from bilateral hippocam pal damage, rather than a pure amnesic syndrome in every case. Then is some evidence that bilateral structural hippocampal abnormalities may not necessarily be associated with significant memory problems, if th ese abnormalities have a developmental basis. However, whilst not nece ssarily profound, any post-operative deterioration in memory function remains a significant consideration in the presurgical evaluation of t emporal-lobe epilepsy patients.