Explicit and implicit emotional processing modifications in pharmacoresistant left temporal lobe epilepsy and anxiodepressive disorders

We examined whether anxiodepressive patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy could be differentiated from those with depression but without epilepsy on tasks that investigate attentional bias toward and explicit judgment of emotional stimuli. Eight depressive patients, eight anxiodepressive patients with epilepsy, and eight controls participated in the present study. Anxiodepressive with epilepsy and depressive patients had comparable depression scores and the same cognitive profile. Two distinct emotional tasks were used: the decision lexical task and the number comparison task. Three emotional connotations were presented: neutral, positive, and negative. The pattern of results showed an attentional bias toward negative words and pictures in depressive patients and only toward negative words in anxiodepressive patients with epilepsy. Moreover, depressive patients explicitly judged negative stimuli with lower intensity and anxiodepressive patients judged neutral stimuli with higher intensity. The present study specifies the emotional functioning in depression with or without left temporal lobe epilepsy.

Research highlights► Emotional processing was evaluated in patients with epilepsy with anxiodepressive disorders and patients with depression. ► There is a disturbance of implicit verbal emotional processing in patients with epilepsy. ► Differences in explicit emotional processing were observed. ► Anxiodepressive disorders in epilepsy are specific.