The aim of the present thesis was to advance the knowledge of diagnostic procedures for lateralizing visual memory deficits and to study the characteristics of perception in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). The first study examined the appropriateness of four routinely used learning and reproduction visuo-spatial memory tests as an identification method for right mesial temporal lobe dysfunctions. Various statistical methods illustrate the tests poor capacity to lateralize the functional deficit zone, even when epilepsy-related clinical and other cognitive factors were controlled. The second study is built upon the results of the first, aiming to validate a new test paradigm for lateralizing right hippocampal dysfunctions. Thus we assessed mesial TLE patients preoperatively with the Delayed Matching to Sample (DMS-48) task and postoperatively with two parallel versions that we had developed and standardized in healthy controls. Our analysis suggests that the DMS-48 and its parallel versions were able to lateralize the epileptic onset zone pre- and postsurgically. The third part consists of an expansion from visual memory to visual perception. A study of single case suggests that visual object recognition and visual imagery are sustained by cortical areas located in proximity to the temporo-occipital ventral pathway and that perception and imagery for space is subserved by mechanisms, which are close anatomically, and outside the ventral path. Furthermore, the results seem to indicate that nonlesional paroxysmal activity in the posterior temporal lobe can cause chronic dysfunctions of the visual system, which may be reversible with effective seizure control.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:CCSD/oai:tel.archives-ouvertes.fr:tel-00865637 |
| Date | 15 November 2012 |
| Creators | Wisniewski, Ilona |
| Publisher | Université de Strasbourg |
| Source Sets | CCSD theses-EN-ligne, France |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | PhD thesis |
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