Rugg M D, Roberts R C, Potter D D, Pickles C D, Nagy M E
Department of Psychology, University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK.
Brain. 1991 Oct;114 ( Pt 5):2313-32. doi: 10.1093/brain/114.5.2313.
Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a continuous recognition memory task for visually presented words, with a 6 item lag between the first and second presentation of each word. The subjects consisted of: (i) a control group of patients with primary generalized epilepsy; (ii) patients who had undergone either a left or a right anterior temporal lobectomy; (iii) unoperated patients with either left or right unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy. In the controls, ERPs to detected 'old' words were reliably more positive-going in the interval 300 to 600 ms post-stimulus than were ERPs to 'new' items. In both left and right lobectomy patients, 'old/new' ERP differences in the same latency range were significantly smaller than in the controls, and did not differ significantly from zero. At midline electrodes, old/new effects in the temporal lobe epilepsy patients were of similar magnitude to those of the controls. In contrast to the control data, the old/new effects in the temporal lobe epilepsy patients were asymmetric, in that they were smaller over the hemisphere ipsilateral to the seizure focus than over the contralateral hemisphere. No relationship was found across subjects between the magnitude of old/new ERP effects and verbal memory performance. In a second task, occasional non-words had to be discriminated against a background of sequentially presented words, some of which were repetitions of the immediately preceding item. ERPs evoked by repeated words were more positive-going than were those to first presentations; this effect was reliable, and of equivalent size, in all patient groups. It is concluded that in the recognition task, old/new ERP effects are dependent on temporal lobe functioning, but that the anterior temporal lobe is not the principal locus of the generators of these effects. The cognitive processes reflected by these effects do not appear to be strongly lateralized to one hemisphere, and neither do they seem to be necessary for normal verbal memory.
在一项针对视觉呈现单词的连续识别记忆任务中记录了事件相关电位（ERP），每个单词的第一次和第二次呈现之间有6个项目的延迟。受试者包括：（i）原发性全身性癫痫患者的对照组；（ii）接受过左或右前颞叶切除术的患者；（iii）未手术的左或右单侧颞叶癫痫患者。在对照组中，与“新”项目的ERP相比，对检测到的“旧”单词的ERP在刺激后300至600毫秒的间隔内可靠地更正向。在左、右叶切除术患者中，相同潜伏期范围内的“旧/新”ERP差异明显小于对照组，且与零无显著差异。在中线电极处，颞叶癫痫患者的旧/新效应幅度与对照组相似。与对照数据相反，颞叶癫痫患者的旧/新效应是不对称的，即与癫痫病灶同侧半球上的效应小于对侧半球上的效应。在受试者中未发现旧/新ERP效应的幅度与言语记忆表现之间的关系。在第二项任务中，必须在连续呈现的单词背景中区分偶尔出现的非单词，其中一些单词是前一个项目的重复。重复单词诱发的ERP比首次呈现的ERP更正向；在所有患者组中，这种效应是可靠的，且大小相当。得出的结论是，在识别任务中，旧/新ERP效应依赖于颞叶功能，但前颞叶不是这些效应产生器的主要部位。这些效应所反映的认知过程似乎没有强烈地偏向于一个半球，对于正常的言语记忆似乎也不是必需的。
