Bell Brian, Dow Christian, Watson E Ryann, Woodard Austin, Hermann Bruce, Seidenberg Michael
Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 53792, USA.
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2003 Jul;9(5):733-9. doi: 10.1017/S1355617703950065.
It is well established that some individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) demonstrate language deficits at the single word level. However, discourse production rarely has been examined quantitatively within this group. This study compared adult TLE patients with an early seizure onset (< or = age 14 years, n = 27) to a control group (n = 28) on narrative and procedural discourse tasks. As a group, the TLE patients performed normally on the procedural discourse task, but differed significantly from the controls on several narrative discourse variables. At the individual level, 30% of the TLE patients versus 4% of the controls demonstrated impaired discourse ability (p and 0.01). Within this early onset TLE group, discourse performance was not associated with demographic or seizure history variables. Considering the cognitive domain, discourse performance correlated significantly with working memory. In summary, mild discourse dysfunction was present in a significant minority of early onset TLE patients, but this deficit was not closely associated with other language measures. Discourse ability and its neuropsychological, neuroanatomical and conversational speech correlates deserve further study in TLE patients.
众所周知，一些颞叶癫痫（TLE）患者在单词层面存在语言缺陷。然而，该群体中的语篇产出很少得到定量研究。本研究将成年早发性癫痫发作（≤14岁，n = 27）的TLE患者与对照组（n = 28）在叙述性和程序性语篇任务上进行了比较。作为一个群体，TLE患者在程序性语篇任务上表现正常，但在几个叙述性语篇变量上与对照组有显著差异。在个体层面，30%的TLE患者与4%的对照组表现出语篇能力受损（p<0.01）。在这个早发性TLE组中，语篇表现与人口统计学或癫痫病史变量无关。考虑到认知领域，语篇表现与工作记忆显著相关。总之，少数早发性TLE患者存在轻度语篇功能障碍，但这种缺陷与其他语言指标没有密切关联。TLE患者的语篇能力及其神经心理学、神经解剖学和对话言语相关性值得进一步研究。
