The role of sleep in forgetting in temporal lobe epilepsy: A pilot study

► TLE patients show greater forgetting than controls on a verbal memory task over daytime wake, but not over nighttime sleep. ► Slow wave sleep is correlated with overnight performance change on a verbal memory task. ► Patients with temporal lobe epilepsy show no deficit in sleep-dependent improvement on a motor sequence task compared with controls. ► Periods of sleep may provide protection against forgetting in temporal lobe epilepsy.