Mahinda Yogarajah1, Niels Focke2, Silvia Bonelli, Geoff Parker3, Daniel Alexander4, Pamela Thompson, Mark Symms, Matthias Koepp, John Duncan
1MRI Unit, National Society for Epilepsy , Chalfont St Peter, Bucks, UK; 2University of Goettingen; 3University of Manchester ; 4University College London
Temporal lobe epilepsy is the most common cause of focal epilepsy, and over one third of patients have seizures that cannot be controlled with medications. Persisting seizures are associated with progressive memory impairment in these patients. Using diffusion tensor tractography we have demonstrated that damage to the fornix in this group, is correlated with material specific memory impairment. In addition, we have demonstrated that the fornix is critical for recall memory, rather than recognition memory. This information aids our understanding of the memory deficits observed in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.