Postictal language dysfunction in complex partial seizures: Effect of contralateral ictal spread

The authors report postictal language evaluation in patients monitored with bitemporal depth electrodes. Patients whose seizures began in the nondomin ant temporal lobe and propagated to the contralateral temporal lobe had a p rolonged postictal language delay (PILD) with paraphasic errors compared wi th seizures that did not spread. Shorter propagation time was also associat ed with a longer PILD. Our study suggests that ictal involvement of the dom inant temporal lobe is important in postictal language behavior.