Objectives:

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of antiepileptic drugs on memory and executive functions in drug-responsive mesial temporal lobe epilepsy with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS).

Methods:

The patients were classified according to the 2017 International League Against Epilepsy classification of seizures. Thirty-four patients with the diagnosis of MTLE-HS and 30 matched controls were enrolled. Patients treated with a maximum 2 anti-epileptic drugs and experiencing no more than 2 instances of focal impaired awareness per month or 2 focal to bilateral tonic-clonic seizures in a year were accepted as drug-responsive. Patients receiving monotherapy (PRM) and polytherapy (PRP) were compared in terms of memory and executive functions.

Results:

There were 19 (55.8%) monotherapy patients in the group and 15 (44.2%) polytherapy patients. The maximum number of learned words recorded in a verbal memory test, the immediate and delayed recall score, and the logical memory score were all statistically significantly lower in the PRP group compared with the PRM group (p<0.05). The results of the verbal attention test and verbal fluency test were also significantly lower in the PRP group (p<0.01).

Conclusion:

Significantly greater impairment was observed in several aspects of cognitive function in the PRP group. These results indicate that antiepileptic drugs may have a negative impact on cognition.

Keywords: Antiepileptic drugs, epilepsy, drug responsiveness, mesial temporal lobe epilepsy