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Abstract
Background: Children with benign childhood epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes (BCECTS) are at risk for cognitive impairment, but reliable methods, other than neuropsychological testing, to verify such a decline are few. Objective: The aim of our work is to study quantitative analysis of the brain responses to cognitive tasks using event related desynchronization (ERD) and event related synchronization (ERS) and correlate the results with cognitive dysfunction in our patients. Methods: Our study included 50 children (30 patients and 20 matched healthy controls). Clinical assessment, Neuropsychological tests, Behavioral measures, P300 averaging and Quantitative EEG analysis were carried out for the patients and control groups, in addition to brain imaging (MRI or CT scan) for the patients` group. Alpha power ERD and ERS were measured as the percent decrease or increase in alpha power produced by target tones relative to reference intervals in six different brain regions during an auditory oddball paradigm. Results: Epileptic children showed statistically significant poorer cognitive performance in the neuropsychological and behavioral tests (verbal IQ, performance IQ, letter cancellation test and the number of correct responses). Moreover, both groups showed diffuse alpha power attenuation in response to the target tones, however this alpha power ERD was significantly smaller in the epileptic children compared to the healthy group. No significant P300 wave latency or amplitude difference between groups and no significant correlation between the alpha ERD percentage and neuropsychological results were found