Alterations in the functional connectivity of a verbal working memory-related brain network in patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy

•We extracted the VWM network for controls with n-back task from fMRI.•We evaluated the RSFC of VWM network in left TLE patients and controls.•Left TLE presented a decreased FC in bilateral MFG, IFG, IPL at resting state.•The alterations in FC may reflect the impairment of VWM-related network in left TLE.•ACCmeanRT (2-back) were not correlated with the FC in VWM-related regions. The aim of this study was to investigate the alterations in a verbal working memory (VWM)-related network in left temporal lobe epilepsy (lTLE) at rest. We evaluated 14 patients with lTLE and 14 control subjects by resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC). The region of interest was defined by the voxel with the highest Z-score during a VWM task according to functional magnetic resonance imaging in 16 healthy volunteers. Our study revealed that the network of RSFC was similar to the task-induced network in the healthy volunteers. Moreover, the patients with lTLE exhibited significantly decreased RSFC in the bilateral middle frontal gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule at rest compared to the control subjects. We found no significant correlation between the mean reaction time of the accurate responses in a 2-back task and the mean z-values within the regions that exhibited significant differences in RSFC at the individual level. The alterations in FCs of VWM-related network in lTLE suggested that epileptiform discharges can damage the brain regions, both local focus and remote areas and that the alterations were not associated with VWM performance.