NEURO Epilepsy Lecture Series: Memory Networks in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy
The 2023-2024 Neuro Epilepsy Lecture Series will include four lectures covering hot topics in basic and clinical epilepsy research. Speakers will include distinguished leaders and rising stars, with the goal of bridging basic research and clinical perspectives.
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Speaker: Mary Pat McAndrews, Ph.D., C.Psych.
Division Head, Clinical & Computational Neuroscience, Krembil Research Institute, UHN
Senior Scientist and Chair, Trainees Affairs Committee, Krembil Research Institute, UHN
Research Operations Director, Slaight Family Centre for Advanced MRI, UHN
Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto
Abstract: There have been decades of research illuminating the various ways in which memory is impacted in individuals with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), much of it focusing on medial temporal lobe damage and dysfunction. However, encoding and retrieving information in the clinic and in everyday situations clearly depends on a network of brain regions and their interactions, including but not exclusive to hippocampal processes and representations. Our lab has been using functional MRI, and particularly measures of functional connectivity, to examine the relationship between brain connectivity and memory integrity in individuals with TLE. I will discuss three lines of our research on this topic: (1) how connectivity is altered when retrieving memories from one’s personal past; (2) how intrinsic connectivity between hippocampus and neocortex relates to memory consolidation; (3) how divergence from normative connectivity relates to current memory performance and can be used to predict memory outcomes following temporal lobe resection. The evidence suggests that network dysfunction is the appropriate level to investigate the variety of memory deficits that emerge in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.
