Summary: A recent research has identified brain regions that are vital for remembering words and how temporal lobe epilepsy affects them. Researchers discovered that brain and cerebral, historical, and cingulate cortice shrinkage were related to trouble recalling words.
They examined 84 seizure people and compared their storage test results to brain size using high-resolution MRI images. On linguistic memory tasks, those with smaller brain regions showed lower performance, which highlights the importance of these regions in word understand.
Important Information:
- Ram and epilepsy: Word recall is hampered by shrinkage in certain brain regions in epilepsy patients.
- MRI insights: High-resolution brain imaging revealed a relationship between linguistic memory performance and head structure.
- Findings may aid in seizure surgery’s efforts to preserve language and memory functions.
Origin: UCL
A group of neurologists and neurosurgeons at UCL has identified the brain parts that are required to recall words and how these are affected by a prevalent type of seizures.
The new study, which was published in Brain Communications, found that the hippocampus, cerebral, temporal, and frontal cortices contraction in the front and side of the brain, were related to poor memory.
The fresh finding demonstrates how the brain’s system of word thoughts is distributed throughout it.
This is especially important for understanding conditions like seizures, which may require a person’s ability to recall words. The researchers ‘ findings aim to help neurosurgical treatments for patients with epilepsy avoid areas of the brain that are crucial for language and memory and may otherwise be affected during operations.
Professor John Duncan, a correspondent author at the University of California, stated that having the ability to understand and recall words is crucial for effective day-to-day storage.  ,
” Detailed MRI brain scans are used to identify the causes of epilepsy and identify head shrunken areas. We can determine which areas of the brain are used to create and store thoughts by determining how effectively a person can remember words and how many parts of the brain are shrunken.
” In contrast, if medication has never stopped seizures occurring, this helps us link neurosurgical care for a child’s seizures, to avoid damaging the parts of the brain that are necessary for storage to function well.”
In the first study of its kind, the researchers studied 43 healthy persons and 84 people who have hippocampal disease ( a situation in which part of the brain is damaged and memory is affected ) and 84 who have temporal lobe seizure (epilepsy arising from the temporal lobes at the sides of the head ).
The people were split into those who had right- and left-sided cortical disease.
The cerebral brain, which is the outer layer of the mind responsible for thinking, memory, attention, belief, consciousness, language, and other functions, as well as certain areas of the hippocampus, which aid in learning, memory, and spatial navigation, were measured using high-resolution MRI scans to determine the size and shape of various parts of the brain.
To evaluate their verbal storage, all members took standardized tests. These checks were a part of the Adult Memory and Information Processing Battery, which evaluates how well people can understand and recognize words.
The researchers then compared the ram test results to the dimensions of various brain regions to see if smaller brain regions were related to poorer memory.
They discovered that smaller sizes in some brain regions, such as the cerebral, historical, and frontal cortices, and some hippocampus, were related to poorer memory for words in people with temporal lobes, according to their findings.
These observations are crucial for understanding how the brain organizes and retains information.
This study is significant because it helps us understand how memory may crash and may help guide the design of neurosurgical procedures for seizures that won’t make storage worse, according to lead author Dr. Giorgio Fiore ( National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, UCLH).
Funding: This study was supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research University College London Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre ( NIHR UCLH BRC ) and the Epilepsy Research UK.
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Source: UCL
Contact: Poppy Tombs – UCL
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
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” Cortico-hippocampal network underpin verbal memory encoding in temporal lobe epilepsy” by John Duncan et al. Brain Communications
Abstract
In historical lobe seizures, cortico-hippocampal networks underpin linguistic memory encoding.
There is little information about the fundamental foundations of individual linguistic memory. Critical medical implications for the management of patients with verbal memory loss will be derived from understanding the human linguistic memory network on a thinner anatomical scale.
In this cross-sectional review, we wanted to find out how much the cerebral cortex and the cortical subfields contribute to the verbal storage encoding in temporal lobes epilepsy. We included healthy volunteers ( n , = 43 ) who were age and sex comparable with consecutive patients ( n , = 84) with radiologically and pathologically defined hippocampal sclerosis ( HS) ( 44 left-sided ) and unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy.
High-resolution MRI images were used to extract the cerebral cortex and brain disciplines ‘ anthropometric and volumetric measurements. The adults ‘ brains were subject to defined neuropsychological evaluation, which included linguistic memory tests using the Child Memory and Information Processing Battery.
Verbal memory tests were performed using methods and standard deviations that were published to standardize the samples. Z-scores were used to correct these tests. The cerebral cortex and hippocampal subfields ‘ grey matter volume was examined in terms of correlations between verbal learning , Z-scores, and the cerebral cortex’s and hippocampal subfields ‘ grey matter volumes.
Lowering the grey matter volumes in the left and right medial and the right-total prefrontal cortex ( Pcorr , <, 0.0001 ), superior and middle temporal gyri ( Pcorr , <, 0.0001 ), anterior and posterior cingulate cortex ( Pcorr , <, 0.0001 ), and parietal–temporal–occipital junction (
These results were consistent across the whole population as well as in a group analysis focusing solely on HS patients. Lower volumes of the left dentate gyrus ( P , = 0.003 ), cornu ammonia 4 ( P , = 0.005 ), and cornu ammonia 3 ( P , = 0.03 ) were related to lower verbal learning , Z-scores in the hippocampi.
This study shows that the volume of the cerebral, historical, and cingulate gyrus, cornu ammonis 4, and cornu ammonis 3 hippocampal subfields, as well as the presence of different regions of the cerebral, historical, and cingulate cortices, is a significant factor in the development of linguistic learning in patients with historical lobe epilepsy.
It improves our understanding of human verbal memory by providing the foundation for the suggestion of a corticohippocampal network for verbal learning in these patients. These biomarkers might serve as promising targets for upcoming modulating therapies.
Future research may also examine the effects of sparing the left dentate gyrus, cornu ammonia 4, and cornu ammonia 3 as a preventative measure against verbal memory loss following temporal lobe epilepsy surgery.
