Memory for
neurological deficits during the intracarotid Amytal procedure:
A hemispheric difference.
Presented to the 20th Annual Meeting
of the International Neuropsychological Society, San Diego CA,
February 5-8, 1992. Journal of Clinical and Experimental
Neuropsychology, 14, 96-97.
Seventy-two patients undergoing the Intracarotid Amytal Procedure
(IAP) were asked after the procedure to recall the neurological deficits
that are caused by the drug (contralateral paralysis, hemianopsia and
hemianesthesia, and speech arrest if the injected hemisphere was dominant
for speech). Despite the obvious neurological deficits, 39% of the
patients were unable to describe any of these lateralized deficits after
either injection; 43% of the patients were aware of deficits after one but
not the other injection (most of these were aware only of a speech
disturbance, always after the left injection); and 18% of the patients
could recall focal deficits after both the right- and left-hemisphere
injections. Descriptions of focal deficits were more frequent after the
left injection than after the right injection, even when reports of speech
disturbances are eliminated. Possible causes of this curious pattern of
amnesia are discussed.
Last modified 27 December 1996 (HAB)
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