Master's Theses

Department

Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Abstract

Milner, Branch, and Rasmussen (1962) first proposed evaluating memory during the sodium amobarbital (WADA) test. Milner hypothesized that people who demonstrated transient amnesia after injection ipsalateral to the seizure focus would be at risk for incurring post-operative global amnesia following temporal lobectomy. It was hoped that this kind of test would prevent the occurrence of global amnesia after such a surgery by predicting the ability of the other hemisphere to compensate and carry out memory functioning. However, there are several controversies associated with the sodium amobarbital (WADA) procedure. That examined in most detail here is whether partial-filling in the posterior cerebral artery (PCA) region affects memory scores obtained during the WADA. Specifically, if there is partial-filling into the PCA region after injection of the internal carotid artery (ICA), does it cause greater memory deficits? Memory scores obtained during left and right ICA injections were compared given the presence or absence of partial-filling in the PCA region. Results indicate that crossflow into the PCA region during the ICA injection did not produce significant memory decrements in both ipsalateral and contralateral hemispheres. This conflicts with other studies suggesting that partial-filling should have shown some effects.

Keywords

Psychology

Advisor

Stephen Kitzis

Date of Award

Spring 1998

Document Type

Thesis - campus only access

Rights

© The Author(s)

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