Individuals with temporal-lobe epilepsy often experience impairments in memory and language. Surgery for medication-refractory epilepsy can improve seizure control but may exacerbate existing deficits or cause new ones. Traditional neuropsychology in epilepsy has focused on standardized tests and specific neural substrates such as the hippocampus or anterior temporal neocortex. Our approach leverages novel paradigms from cognitive neuroscience — particularly imaging of brain networks — to gain deeper insight into these deficits and individual differences in treatment outcomes. 

 

Recent and ongoing projects:  

• Assessing naturalistic memory (e.g., movies, personal life events), to gain a more robust understanding of how brain networks altered by epilepsy may impact ‘real-world’ memory abilities beyond what is typically seen in the clinic. . 

• Identifying neural substrates of accelerated long-term forgetting, including disrupted hippocampal–neocortical interaction and impaired sleep-related consolidation. 

• Understanding brain networks supporting semantic memory (retrieval of word meanings and general world knowledge) that are impacted by temporal lobe epilepsy. 

• Examining cognitive resilience to surgery based on features of non-resected components of language and memory networks. 

 

We are also developing interventions to support memory and well-being in people living with epilepsy.