AU  - Wang, Kangrun
AU  - Xie, Fangfang
AU  - Liu, Chaorong
AU  - Wang, Ge
AU  - Zhang, Min
AU  - He, Jialinzi
AU  - Tan, Langzi
AU  - Tang, Haiyun
AU  - Xiao, Bo
AU  - Wan, Lily
AU  - Long, Lili
TI  - Chinese Verbal Fluency Deficiency in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy with and without Hippocampal Sclerosis: A Multiscale Study
PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
DP  - 2024 Sep 11 
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience 
VI  - 44 
IP  - 37 
4099 - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/44/37/e0558242024.abstract 
4100 - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/44/37/e0558242024.full 
SO - J. Neurosci. 2024 Sep 11; 44(37)
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0558-24.2024 [doi] 
AB  - To test a Chinese character version of the phonemic verbal fluency task in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and assess the verbal fluency deficiency pattern in TLE with and without hippocampal sclerosis, a cross-sectional study was conducted including 30 patients with TLE and hippocampal sclerosis (TLE-HS), 28 patients with TLE and without hippocampal sclerosis (TLE-NHS), and 29 demographically matched healthy controls (HC). Both sexes were enrolled. Participants finished a Chinese character verbal fluency (VFC) task during functional MRI. The activation/deactivation maps, functional connectivity, degree centrality, and community features of the left frontal and temporal regions were compared. A neural network classification model was applied to differentiate TLE-HS and TLE-NHS using functional statistics. The VFC scores were correlated with semantic fluency in HC while correlated with phonemic fluency in TLE-NHS. Activation and deactivation deficiency was observed in TLE-HS and TLE-NHS (p < 0.001, k ≥ 10). Functional connectivity, degree centrality, and community features of anterior inferior temporal gyri were impaired in TLE-HS and retained or even enhanced in TLE-NHS (p < 0.05, FDR-corrected). The functional connectivity was correlated with phonemic fluency (p < 0.05, FDR-corrected). The neural network classification reached an area under the curve of 0.90 in diagnosing hippocampal sclerosis. The VFC task is a Chinese phonemic verbal fluency task suitable for clinical application in TLE. During the VFC task, functional connectivity of phonemic circuits was impaired in TLE-HS and was enhanced in TLE-NHS, representing a compensative phonemic searching strategy applied by patients with TLE-NHS.