Miozzo Michele, Hamberger Marla J
Neuropsychology. 2015 Mar;29(2):274-281. doi: 10.1037/neu0000097. Epub 2014 Jun 16.
Word-finding difficulties are a common complaint among individuals with left (domain) temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). We tested the hypothesis that these difficulties stem from a deficit in semantic processing.
We tested and compared semantic processing in left and right TLE patients and healthy controls. To avoid the confound of word retrieval, we used two semantic tasks (semantic priming and picture-matching) that did not require spoken word production. In addition to accuracy, we recorded response time in an effort to achieve a sensitive assessment of semantic processing.
Semantic priming was in all respects comparable between left TLE patients with documented word-finding difficulty and right TLE patients without word-finding difficulty. Likewise, performances were comparable between groups on picture matching, which demanded knowledge of detailed semantic features for decisions regarding subtle differences in semantic relatedness.
Overall, these results, which demonstrate a relative preservation of semantic processing in left TLE, suggest that the probable cause of word-finding difficulty in this group relates to processes that follow semantic retrieval in word production, involving the retrieval of lexical/phonological information. In addition to clinical implications for remediation, these results refine our understanding of the neurocognitive organization of temporal mechanisms supporting spoken word production.
词汇查找困难是左侧（优势）颞叶癫痫（TLE）患者常见的主诉。我们检验了这样一种假设，即这些困难源于语义加工缺陷。
我们对左侧和右侧TLE患者以及健康对照者的语义加工进行了测试和比较。为避免词汇检索的干扰，我们使用了两项不需要说出单词的语义任务（语义启动和图片匹配）。除了准确性，我们还记录了反应时间，以便对语义加工进行灵敏的评估。
在所有方面，有词汇查找困难记录的左侧TLE患者与无词汇查找困难的右侧TLE患者之间的语义启动情况相当。同样，在图片匹配任务中，各组表现也相当，该任务需要了解详细的语义特征才能对语义相关性的细微差异做出判断。
总体而言，这些结果表明左侧TLE患者的语义加工相对保留，这表明该组词汇查找困难的可能原因与单词生成中语义检索之后的过程有关，涉及词汇/语音信息的检索。除了对补救措施的临床意义外，这些结果还完善了我们对支持口语生成的颞叶机制的神经认知组织的理解。
