Ph. D. Project
Title:
Picture naming decline after left temporal lobe epilepsy surgery
Dates:
2023/03/01 - 2026/02/28
Student:
Description:
Temporal lobe surgery for epilepsy leads in a significative improvement of seizure control but can generate
troubles in picture naming.
Those troubles are considered to be linked to the resection of basal temporal language area (BTLA), a brain
region which might be dedicated to lexical access.
Direct electrostimulations of the brain allow to identify language structures, especially the BTLA. However,
despite this identification, patients still encounter picture naming disturbances, with variable recoveries. No
precise anatomo-functional criterion has yet been identified to understand or predict such troubles and the
long term outcomes.

The main objective of this work is to study the anatomofunctional basis of picture naming in the temporo-
basal region to better predict the long term outcomes after surgery.
Voxels lesion symptom mapping methods will be used on surgical cavities and associated to cognitive scores
in patients to identify critical structures for picture naming. Data from electrical stimulations will also be
used to better understand the structural variability of the temporal lobe and consequently the clinical
variability after surgery.
Keywords:
basal temporal language area, epilepsy, direct electrical stimulation, picture naming, language
Department(s): 
Biology, Signals and Systems in Cancer and Neuroscience