Interictal Epileptiform Discharges are Task Dependent and are Associated with Lasting Electrocorticographic Changes.
Publication/Presentation Date
1-1-2021
Abstract
The factors that control the occurrence of interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) are not well understood. We suspected that this phenomenon reflects an attention-dependent suppression of interictal epileptiform activity. We hypothesized that IEDs would occur less frequently when a subject viewed a task-relevant stimulus compared with viewing a blank screen. Furthermore, IEDs have been shown to impair memory when they occur in certain regions during the encoding or recall phases of a memory task. Although these discharges have a short duration, their impact on memory suggests that they have longer lasting electrophysiological effects. We found that IEDs were associated with an increase in low-frequency power and a change in the balance between low- and high-frequency oscillations for several seconds. We found that the occurrence of IEDs is modified by whether a subject is attending to a word displayed on screen or is observing a blank screen. In addition, we found that discharges in brain regions in every lobe impair memory. These findings elucidate the relationship between IEDs and memory impairment and reveal the task dependence of the occurrence of IEDs.
Volume
2
Issue
2
First Page
019
Last Page
019
ISSN
2632-7376
Published In/Presented At
Meisenhelter, S., Quon, R. J., Steimel, S. A., Testorf, M. E., Camp, E. J., Moein, P., Culler, G. W., 4th, Gross, R. E., Lega, B. C., Sperling, M. R., Kahana, M. J., & Jobst, B. C. (2021). Interictal Epileptiform Discharges are Task Dependent and are Associated with Lasting Electrocorticographic Changes. Cerebral cortex communications, 2(2), tgab019. https://doi.org/10.1093/texcom/tgab019
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences
PubMedID
34296164
Department(s)
Department of Medicine
Document Type
Article