The Greek linguistic assessment for awake brain surgery: development process and normative data

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Linguistics
• Neurosurgery

Background:

• Direct electrical stimulation is the gold standard for intraoperative language mapping in brain tumor surgery.
• Assessing language functions during surgery impacts tumor resection extent and patient outcomes.
• Personalized preoperative testing requires normative data for appropriate stimulus response.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and standardize the first Greek linguistic test for brain mapping during awake craniotomies.
• To create tasks suitable for the constraints of intraoperative language assessment.
• To establish normative data for a Greek population to support clinical application.

Main Methods:

• Development of a Greek linguistic test with tasks controlled for psycholinguistic and lexical variables.
• Standardization procedures involving 80 healthy, right-handed, Greek-speaking adults aged 20-60 years.
• Analysis of demographic variables (age) and their impact on test performance.

Main Results:

• The Greek Language Assessment for Awake Brain Surgery (GLAABS) test was developed and standardized.
• Few demographic effects were observed, with older participants showing slightly lower scores.
• Percentiles and cut-off scores were calculated for different demographic groups, including age.

Conclusions:

• The developed Greek linguistic test (GLAABS) is suitable for intraoperative brain mapping.
• Normative data and age-specific scores enhance the clinical utility of the test for Greek-speaking patients.
• The study provides a crucial tool for improving language preservation during neurosurgery in Greek-speaking populations.