The nociferous influence of interictal discharges on memory

Abstract

This scientific commentary refers to ‘Interictal epileptiform activity outside the seizure onset zone impacts cognition’, by Ung et al. (doi:10.1093/brain/awx143).

Figure 1

Schematic of TCI phenomena during a delayed recall memory task, similar to that used by Ung and colleagues. (A) Example portraying spike-related disruption of memory encoding. Continuous ECoG (in blue) is recorded while the subject views words sequentially displayed on a screen, followed by a distractor task (mathematical calculations), and finally by a period when the subject must recall any words they remember. Note the impaired recall of the word that occurred around the same time as the spike (DRUM). (B) Example portraying spike-related disruption of memory retrieval, with continuous ECoG in green. This is similar to A, except here a spike in the recall period is associated with impaired recall of further words. These examples are simplified for conceptual clarity.