Attentional control, however, encompasses multiple cognitive processes, which may be differentially affected by TLE. One aspect of attentional control that, to our knowledge, has not been examined in these patients is the capacity to perform two distinct tasks concurrently. Although decrements in dual-task performance have been found in neuropsychological groups who are characteristically impaired on other tests of attentional control (Baddeley, Della Sala, Papagno, & Spinnler, 1997; Oram, Geffen, Geffen, Kavanagh, & McGrath, 2005), Olaparib mouse other studies suggest that dual-task performance is dissociable from other forms of attentional control. For example,

Dalrymple-Alford, Kalders, Jones, and Watson (1994) found that patients with Parkinson’s disease performed normally on traditional measures of attentional control, but displayed significant dual-task impairments. In contrast, Baddeley et al. (1997) reported the reverse dissociation

in a sample of frontal patients without behavioural problems. To date, evaluating the status of attentional control in TLE has predominantly relied on drawing conclusions across different studies that have deployed different measures and tested different epilepsy cohorts. To provide a comprehensive evaluation of attentional control in TLE, we administered both a dual-task coordination test and a range of other attentional control measures, including set shifting, sustained attention, selective attention, and divided attention tasks. Participants: Quizartinib price Eighteen TLE surgery candidates (Mage = 35.6, SD = 8.9) who were referred by Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital NHS Trust for neuropsychological assessment participated in the study. The demographic and clinical features of the sample are presented in Table 1. All patients were on optimum antiepileptic medication, but had epileptogenic abnormality. MRI scans confirmed unilateral hippocampal

sclerosis to the left side in seven patients and to the right side in 11 patients. EEG evidence ascribed the focus of epileptogenic activity to the left side in the seven patients with left hippocampal sclerosis, to the right side in nine of the medchemexpress 11 patients with right hippocampal sclerosis and bilaterally in two right hippocampal patients. One right TLE patient had undergone an anterior temporal lobectomy and was being assessed as a part of his post-surgical evaluation. A control group comprising 22 healthy adults (Mage = 36.1, SD = 13.7) was recruited through opportunity sampling. All participants had normal or corrected to normal vision. The dual-task procedure involved participants conducting a tracking task and a digit recall task simultaneously in accordance with the method described by Baddeley et al. (1997).