Padrão cognitivo na epilepsia do lobo temporal e do lobo frontal: quais os testes neuropsicológicos que os permitem distinguir?

Abstract

It is estimated that between 30-40% of people diagnosed with epilepsy have cognitive deficits (Byard et al., 2007 cited in Wang, Chen, Liu, Lin & Huang, 2020). These are especially reported in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) and Frontal Lobe Epilepsy (FLE) (Hermann et al., 2017), however, their distinction through cognitive pattern is a current discussion in the literature. Thus, the present work aims to study the cognitive pattern, specifically, memory and executive functions, of these two groups. Thus, this study aims to analyse the cognitive pattern, specifically, memory and executive functions, of these two groups. In this study 91 individuals participated, 77 diagnosed with ELT and 14 with ELF. The results showed that only the Mental Control subtest of the WMS-III was significantly different between the two groups. Additionally, it was found that the left ELT group performed significantly better than the group with right-sided epileptic focus. These results indicate that there is an overlap in the cognitive pattern of these two groups and add knowledge to the scientific community about the theory of material specificity. Finally, this study may have implications for clinical practice in the Portuguese population with epilepsy.