Recognition of facial expressions of emotion in subjects with epilepsy and mesial temporal sclerosis | [Riconoscimento delle espressioni facciali emozionali in pazienti con epilessia e sclerosi temporo-mesiale]

The effect of unilateral amygdala damage on processing emotional stimuli is not clear. Since amygdala complex may be damaged unilaterally in subjects with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE), we examined the processing of emotional facial expression in TLE patients with MRI evidence of mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS). Emotion recognition was impaired in patients with right TLE and MTS at variance with epileptic subjects with other localization related epilepsy. The deficit in recognition was maximum for fearful faces. Moreover, during functional MRI patients with right MTS lacked the activation of separable mesial-temporal and frontal regions for the processing of fearful faces.