Absence of procedural learning in children with frontal damage

In a previous study of adult epileptic patients (de Guise et al., 1996), we demonstrated a major role of the frontal cortex in learning a visuomotor p rocedural skill. Within the context of cerebral plasticity, we wanted to as sess whether children with frontal damage would show any of the deficits ob served in adult patients. Three frontal and three temporal epileptic patien ts and 10 control children performed a unimanual serial reaction time task adapted from Nissen and Bullemer (1987). Control children and children with temporal foci learned the procedural task when using either hand. By contr ast, children with frontal epilepsy failed to learn the task when using the hand controlateral to their foci. These findings confirm the role of the f rontal cortex in procedural learning and indicate a limited amount of plast icity following early damage to the frontal areas. (C) 1999 Academic Press.