The authors evaluated adverse effects of intracarotid propofol injection during a Wada test and their risk factors in 58 patients. Nineteen patients had an adverse effect, mostly in patients receiving more than 10 mg. For patients older than age 55 years or those requiring an injection dose greater than 20 mg to produce hemiplegia, propofol should be injected slowly and patients monitored for excitatory movements.

No abstract

The functional changes that occur throughout the human brain after the selective removal of an epileptogenic lesion remain unclear. Subtemporal selective amygdalohippocampectomy (SAH) has been advocated as a minimally invasive surgical procedure for patients with medically intractable mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE). We evaluated the effects of subtemporal SAH on cerebral glucose metabolism and memory function in 15 patients with medically intractable MTLE with hippocampal sclerosis using [(18)F]-fluorodeoxyglucose PET (FDG-PET) and the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised. The patients were evaluated before and 1-5 years (mean 2.6 years) after surgery. In patients with MTLE of the language-dominant hemisphere, the basal temporal language area was preserved by this surgical approach. Voxel-wise comparison of FDG-PET images was conducted using SPM5 to identify the brain regions showing postoperative changes in glucose metabolism (height threshold, P = 0.01 corrected for multiple comparisons; extent threshold, 100 voxels). During spatial normalization of the postoperative FDG-PET images, we used cost-function masking to minimize any inappropriate image distortion as a result of the abnormal signal within the surgically resected region. Postoperative glucose metabolism increased in extratemporal areas ipsilateral to the affected side, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the dorsomedial and ventromedial frontal cortices. Glucose metabolism also increased in the bilateral inferior parietal lobules and in the remaining temporal lobe regions remote from the resected mesial temporal region, such as the superior temporal gyrus and the temporal pole. By contrast, postoperative glucose metabolism decreased only in the mesial temporal area adjacent to the resected region. Postoperative verbal memory, delayed recall and attention/concentration scores were significantly better than preoperative scores regardless of the resected side. This study suggests that the selective removal of the epileptogenic region in MTLE using a subtemporal approach improved cerebral glucose metabolism in the areas receiving projections from the affected mesial temporal lobe. Cognitive improvement might result from a combination of good seizure control and minimizing the regions of the brain with postoperative functional impairment.

The anteroposteriorly running superior longitudinal fasciculus could cause complications in the fiber tracking of upper-extremity motor pathways at the level of the corona radiata. During resection of tumors located near the corona radiata, subcortical electrical stimulation should be applied at some distance from the pyramidal tract, as estimated by fiber tracking.

Summary:Purpose: Alternation of the intracortical inhibitory and excitatory mechanisms in focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) has not been well elucidated in vivo in humans. We investigated in vivo alternation of these mechanisms in epileptogenesis of FCD by means of paired-pulse direct cortical electrical stimulation.Methods: A 31-year-old man with FCD at the left foot primary somatosensory (SI) and motor areas who underwent invasive monitoring with subdural electrodes was studied. By means of subdural electrodes, paired-pulse electrical stimulation was performed at the epileptic focus (foot SI) and control cortex (hand SI) with interstimulus interval (ISI) of 1-100 ms. Instead of using motor evoked potentials to investigate the degree of cortical excitability in response to motor cortex stimulation, we evaluated the size change of corticocortical evoked potentials (CCEPs), which are elicited at the adjacent cortex by direct cortical stimulation via fiber projection and thus reflect direct and indirect excitation of corticocortical projection neurons at the site of stimulation.Results: During the interictal state, paired-pulse stimulation of the focus revealed abnormally enhanced intracortical inhibition at ISI of 1-10 ms (maximum, 22%) compared with control stimulation of the hand SI (ISI of 1-2 ms; maximum, 18%) (p < 0.01). While the patient was having the somatosensory aura that later evolved into the left-leg clonic seizure, single and paired stimulation at the focus showed increased cortical excitability (enlarged CCEP) and decreased intracortical inhibition, respectively.Conclusions: During the aura, interictally enhanced intracortical inhibition at the focus was replaced by increased cortical excitability and decreased intracortical inhibition, suggesting increased net intrinsic epileptogenicity during seizure generation in this patient with FCD.