Figure 4.

Overview of study findings. Based on our findings, we propose the following schematic model to capture the impact of epilepsy surgery on neuropsychological trajectories in children with drug-resistant focal epilepsy. Prior to epilepsy surgery, children with epilepsy fall increasingly behind their typically developing peers, resulting in them displaying a decline in IQ (standard) scores. Children who are rendered seizure free after surgery display a ‘catching-up’ effect, which allows them to attain a cognitive level that is comparable to that of their typically developing peers without epilepsy. Children who are not seizure free after surgery do not display this same ‘catching-up’ effect and have lower IQ scores already prior to surgery. The blue line (of typically developing children) shows the mean of a normative sample and corresponds to an IQ score of 100 at each data-point.