Language fMRI activation declines in patients with left medial temporal lobe epilepsy

Objective: patients with epilepsy commonly have language deficits. this study investigates whether language fmri activation and language dysfunction are systematically related in patients with left medial temporal lobe epilepsy (left-mtle). methodology: we studied sixteen patients with left-mtle and 16 healthy controls. semantic judgment task functional mri scanning and neuropsychological tests were performed. activation maps of language function mri analyzed by analysis of functional neuroimages (afni). results: there was no difference in activation maps of the semantic judgment task fmri between left-mtle and healthy controls group. compared with a healthy control group, in the left-mtle group, there was significantly less activation volume in the left language regions of the inferior frontal and superior temporal gyrus; the left-mtle group also had significantly lower neuropsychological language scores. conclusion: language dysfunction in left-mtle patients is associated with decline of language fmri activation.