Auditory Temporal Ordering in Patients with Medial Temporal Lobe Epilepsy with and without Hippocampal Sclerosis.

CONTEXT: Temporal lobe epilepsy can affect central auditory processing (CAP) skills. Auditory temporal ordering (ATO) is a CAP skill that can be evaluated using duration pattern test (DPT).

AIM: The aim is to evaluate ATO in patients with medial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) with hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE + HS) and without hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS) and in their subgroups.

SETTINGS AND

DESIGN

It was a prospective cross-sectional behavioral observational study conducted in a tertiary neuropsychiatric hospital.

SUBJECTS AND

METHODS

The subjects were patients with refractory MTLE (N = 100), comprising 50 "MTLE + HS" patients and 50 "MTLE-HS". Age-range matched normal healthy subjects (n = 50) formed the control group. Both groups were administered duration pattern test (DPT).

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc analysis, Dunnett's two-sided and Bonferroni, paired sample t-test, Pearson's correlation, and independent t-test.

RESULTS

The clinical groups performed significantly poorer than the control group, and however, did not differ significantly between them. The age at onset and the duration of the seizures did not have significant relation with the test measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with "MTLE + HS" as well as those with "MTLE-HS" and their respective subgroups revealed abnormal ATO indicating CAP dysfunction.