Conflict Processing and Response Inhibition in Patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: fMRI Study

Abstract

We evaluate the conflict processing and response of inhibition with the Stroop task in patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy who underwent depth electrode amygdala-hippocampal recording to determine focus laterality for further lobectomy and control subjects analyzing the cerebral metabolic response by fMRI. Patients showed longer reaction times and more errors in the Stroop task than control subjects. At the conflict processing and response of inhibition, TLE patients presented difficulties in the executive system regulated by the frontal lobe; they showed dominant brain activation in the right hemisphere frontal lobe and right inferior frontal junction, inferior frontal, superior frontal, middle frontal gyri and ACC. Patients did not show left activation, as observed in control subjects.