New advances of functional imaging in the assessment of memory in temporallobe epilepsy.

Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is usually associated with a specific impairme nt of memory functions. A reliable assessment of memory function seems ther efore a crucial element of the presurgical evaluation for surgery epilepsy, especially for temporal lobectomy. To date, intracarotid amobarbital testi ng remains the gold standard to evaluate memory before planning surgery in patients with refractory TLE. Functional imaging, either positron emission tomography or functional MRI, holds great promise as a powerful tool in mem ory evaluation. Preliminary studies, essentially in healthy volunteers, hav e shown promising results. In the future, functional imaging, combined with other techniques, will certainly contribute to the clinical presurgical ev aluation of patients with epilepsy.