Editors’ Commentary 3

Abstract

Within the context of surgical treatment of epilepsy careful and competent neuropsychological evaluation is of great importance with respect to:

• 1. Assessment and quantification of cognitive and affective deficits and release symptoms

• 2. Delineation of deficits associated with a particular brain locus (diagnostic purpose: lateralization/ localization)

• 3. Providing guidelines for identification of those patients most likely to benefit from a planned operation — and also to identify those least likely to benefit from surgery or even with a high risk of worsening (predictive purpose in terms of: seizure control, cognitive changes, psychosocial outcome, abnormal brain organization)

• 4. Evaluation of direct effects of surgical treatment on cognitive and affective performance, com-paring preoperative baseline with postoperative data. Moreover, if repeated and comparable testing is done, the evolution of brain function in a patient with a long-standing seizure career can be objectively documented, and effects of various drug regimes, as well as seizure frequency, etc., can be studied and compared with the effects of surgery