Abstracts

RATIONALE: to examine the relationships between self-awareness of memory deficits, actual performance on memory tests, anxiety and depression level and laterality of epileptogenic lesion. Previous research suggests that there are lateralization effects on the level of anxiety and on the self-assessment of the symptoms of behavioral change including quality of life in candidates for epilepsy surgery. Patients with left temporal lobe epileptogenic lesions tend to overreport while patients with right temporal lobe lesions tend to underreport symptoms of behavioral change. It was thus reasoned that laterality of lesion may differentially affect the level of self-awareness of memory deficits in epilepsy surgical patients. METHODS:10 temporal lobe patients who were candidates for epilepsy surgery and 8 demographically matched normal controls have been examined. Materials include Bennet-Levy subjective memory questionnaire, a battery of neuropsychological memory tests, Depression inventory (GDI) and Spielberger state/trait anxiety scale. ANOVAs were performed on group, anxiety and depression level, subjective and objective memory measures. RESULTS: right temporal lobe patients showed a high discrepancy between their self-rated and actual memory performance compared to the left temporal lobe patients and normal controls. Left temporal lobe patients, on the other hand, accurately self-rated their memory despite their high level of anxiety (t=1.73, p=.10). CONCLUSIONS: left temporal lobe patients seem to exhibit adequate self-awareness of their memory abilities regardless of higher levels of negative affect, while right temporal lobe patients seem to be less accurate in their memory self assessment. These results underscore important differences in the level of self-awareness between patients with left and right epileptogenic lesions.