Intracarotid Amobarbital Procedure as a Predictor of Material‐Specific Memory Change After Anterior Temporal Lobectomy

Summary: Memory testing during the intracarotid amobarbital procedure (IAP) is used extensively to identify temporal lobe surgery candidates “at risk” for developing severe postoperative anterograde amnesia. However, the utility of the IAP in predicting commonly observed material‐specific memory deficits has not been thoroughly investigated. We examined the utility of contralateral IAP memory testing, as an index of the functional capacity of the surgical temporal lobe, to predict postoperative material‐specific memory changes on the Wechsler Memory Scale‐Revised (WMS‐R) in patients with left hemisphere speech dominance undergoing left (n = 32) and right (n = 31) temporal lobectomy (TL). Left TL patients who “passed” contralateral IAP memory testing (368% recognition of memory items) had significantly greater verbal memory decrements than those who “failed” the IAP, presumably as a result of removal of functional tissue. A similar relationship between contralateral IAP performance and visual memory performance was not observed among right TL patients. Thus, the functional adequacy of the tissue to be resected appears to be inversely related to postoperative verbal memory decrement, at least among left TL patients. This relationship is consistent with results of recent studies demonstrating an inverse relationship between verbal memory decrements after left TL and preoperative neuropsychological verbal memory performance, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) hippocampal volumes, and degree of mesiotemporal sclerosis (MTS).