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Published on: July 14, 2016
Memory guided saccades in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis
S Colnaghi1, C Arbasino, G Beltrami
1Laboratorio Movimenti Oculari, Fondazione Istituto Neurologico C. Mondino IRCCS, Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Università degli Studi di Pavia, Italy. si.co@libero.it
Objective:
Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS) may involve extrahippocampal areas of structural and functional damage. The incidence and the features of this damage are still a matter of debate and vary depending on the method applied. Memory guided saccades (MGSs) with a memorization delay longer than 20s can be used reliably to evaluate the parahippocampal cortex.
Methods:
MGSs with 3 and 30s memorization delays were recorded with the search coil technique in six patients affected by right MTLE-HS, and in 13 healthy controls.
Results:
The patients were not able to reduce the MGSs residual amplitude error after the first saccade with a 30s memorization delay. This finding was more evident with leftward saccades.
Conclusions:
MGS abnormalities suggested the functional involvement of the right parahippocampal cortex in most of the patients with MTLE-HS, and this supports the clinical and anatomopathological heterogeneity of the disease.
Significance:
MGSs can be used in patients with right MTLE-HS to detect a possible functional involvement of the ipsilateral parahippocampal cortex.
