Reduced self-regulation of cerebrum contributes to executive impairment in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of self-regulation of cerebrum in the executive impairment. 22 subjects were enrolled were assessed by a neuropsychological test of executive function using attentional networks test and the cerebral activity was evaluated by functional magnetic resonance imaging. The patients with TLE had a longer reaction time than controls (P < 0.05). Moreover, the healthy controls showed more right hemisphere lateralized activation in incongruent tasks. Finally, both positively and negatively correlated cerebral areas were found in the healthy controls but only negatively correlated cerebral areas were found in the TLE patients. Reduced cerebral lead to areas and lack of activation of right midline positively self-regulatory cerebral areas may executive impairment in TLE patients.