No, our work is primarily focused on Children, Young adults in the Juvenile Justice System, and the psychology and survival behaviors related to trauma.  At this time our research is primarily conducted with faculty at the University of Notre Dame.

Thank you Margo Demont  for your kind feedback. Appreciated.

Dear Vgneswaran,

At UCLA neo-surgical language mapping is pretty common. There are 2-3 pre-operative language fMRIs a week, 1-2 Wada tests a month, and about one intraopeartive language mapping a month. As far as I know, all patient undergo pre- and post-surgical evaluations.

As to brain mapping protocols, 3 lexico-semantic tasks are used in fMRI: object naming, auditory responsive naming, and reading. We use the Montreal protocol for the Wada test. The protocol consists of object naming, and following simple instructions (e.g., "Wiggle your toes"). The two tasks are used during the encoding phase for memory and language assessment. During the recovery phase, we use additional language tests: simple language comprehension tasks (e.g., "Does the stone sink in water?"), auditory responsive naming, repetition, and grammar tasks. During intraoperative mapping we typically use object naming, and less commonly reading, auditory responsive naming, and spontaneous speech. 

Together with my UCLA co-workers, I have been working on augmenting the three language mapping techniques with grammar production and comprehension tests. We got some interesting results. We hope to add those to standard language mapping in the near future.

I am not very familiar with protocols used at neuropsychological evaluations but I could contact you with neuropsychologists working at UCLA.

Hopefully this answers your question. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Best,

Monika

Dear Vigneswaran,

we recently published two articles where we discuss the different intraoperative tasks that have been used to assess language during surgery, and what are their advantages and disadvantages from a Cognitive Neuropsychological perspective – you can check those in my profile.

Members of the European Low Grade Glioma Network (vid.nb1) asked themselves the same question last year at the meeting in Paris. An article answering some of those issues will probably appear later this year. Emmanuel Mandonnet is leading that work.

For a more classical reference, you can have a look at Feigl et al. (nd). Basic Guidelines for awake surgeries: the Regensburg Protocol.

Hope this helps!

Adrià

Nb1. http://www.braintumours.eu/

Dear Monica,

I truly appreciate your detailed response. Thank you so much. I am aware of the fact that UCLA has been doing routine pre-operative fMRI, WADA and intraoperative mapping procedures for some time (and doing them at such a frequent rates, I believe, could be reflective of high patient load at UCLA). Are  all these patients are those with refractory seizures or are they mixed  with other brain pathologies e.g brain tumours?

In terms of the neuropsychological tests/ evaluations, the ones that you listed above are obviously a part of the tests that are usually administered by a clinical neuropsychologist. We do use quite a number of the test that you listed above.

We do perform pre and post surgical assessments here in UMMC (University  Malaya Medical Centre) for selected patients (especially those slated for epilepsy and neurovascular surgeries) and perform  subdural grid monitoring and cortical mapping especially for language, numerical processing and perceptual processing speed. It would really be great to read the new language mapping techniques that you intend to augment in the near future. All the very best for that endeavour.

Thank you very much for the offer to get me in contact with your counterparts (the neuropsychologists working in UCLA). This would indeed be helpful as our works here in Malaysia is still at its infancy. We do have intraoperative CT and MR facilities with functional imaging capabilities. The need for us to move and progress forward in this area is greater now than ever.  

I might be visiting the States this year to attend the 102nd Radiological Society of Northern America meeting in Chicago this December. It would be great if I could pay a visit to your center in UCLA.

Dear Adria,

Thank you for the literature details that you freely shared. I have downloaded quite a few of them from both your profile page and Monica's. Its gonna long weeks ahead with me poring through these articles/ references. 

Thank you for sharing the link for ELGGN network. My professor and I are quite keen on attending the workshop in Austria this June, especially if the workshop is clinical in nature. Are you attending too? 

Do you guys in Dublin have your very own protocols for the intraoperative mapping and neuropsychological evaluation in Dublin?

Kind regards,

Vic

We also do neuropsychological testing with complex test batteries and  fMRI and -if necessary- WADA testing (also in Children) but all of this beeing performed PRE surgically. Kind regards Nils

Dear Vigneswaran! Our Research Institute provides in vitro and in vivo only on cell cultures and experimental animals. We are grateful to our colleagues from the Neurosurgical Clinics that are introducing our methodology. But we only visit hospitals, observe the principle of "do no harm to patients with new methods."

Vladimir

Thank you Nils Holert for the information you with regards to the clinical practise in your centre. Are there no follow-up neuropsychological evaluation that is done post surgically? And with regards to the fMRI, I would assume that you would rather perform task-based fMRI paradigms, correct? Were they specifically designed for your clinical population or they adaption of more conventional neuropsychological tests?