Language mapping with navigated transcranial magnetic stimulation in pediatric and adult patients undergoing epilepsy surgery: Comparison with extraoperative direct cortical stimulation

Abstract

Our study suggests that nTMS language mapping is clinically useful and safe in epilepsy surgery patients, including school-aged children and patients with extensive cognitive dysfunction. Similar to in tumor surgery, mapping results in the frontal region are most reliable. False negative findings may be slightly more likely in epilepsy than in tumor surgery patients. Mapping results should always be verified by other methods in individual patients.