Usefulness of verbal selective reminding in distinguishing frontal lobe memory disorders in epilepsy

Frontal lobe memory disorders are distinguished from hippocampal memory disorders by poor organization of encoding and retrieval, among other things. Because the verbal Selective Reminding Test (SRT) has a metamemory ("remembering-to-remember") component, it may be useful in distinguishing frontal from temporal lobe memory disorders in patients with intractable epilepsy. Thirty-four patients with frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE) and 34 with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation that included multiple memory and executive function tests. Patients with FLE performed significantly worse than those with TLE on SRT measures and Wechsler Memory Scale, Third Edition, Logical Memory (LM II), but not on other verbal and nonverbal memory tests. Furthermore, SRT and LM-II were significantly correlated with executive function measures. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications: (1) the memory impairment observed in frontal lobe disorders may be due, in part, to deficits in organizational strategy, monitoring, and remembering-to-remember, and (2) SRT and LM-II may be useful tests to differentiate frontal from temporal lobe memory disorders.