Functional brain maturation in neonates as measured by EEG-sleep analyses.
OBJECTIVE
Seven measures of neonatal EEG-sleep behavior were evaluated using multivariate analyses to ascertain if physiologic differences exist between healthy full- and preterm cohorts.


METHODS
A total of 381 24-channel EEG-sleep studies were analyzed, including 125 recordings on 50 healthy fullterm and 256 recordings on 59 asymptomatic preterm infants between 28 and 70.6 weeks post-conceptional age. One EEG study for each subject was randomly assigned (109 studies) within the time window of 38-44 weeks post-conceptional age. A multivariate analytic procedure was applied to the data sets, by which a 'dysmaturity index' was assigned for each infant, based on 7 EEG-sleep measures. This index was defined in terms of the distance from the fullterm group's centroid (i.e. Mahalanobis distance). Receiver-operating characteristic curves (ROCs) were calculated for several different combinations of 7 EEG-sleep measures to describe differences between neonatal cohorts.


RESULTS
The ROC curve corresponding to all 7 EEG-sleep measures covered the substantially largest area among the curves for the sets of variables considered, suggesting that all 7 measures of sleep behavior were required to best discriminate between cohorts.


CONCLUSIONS
This methodology exemplifies how EEG-sleep analyses can be applied to the study of functional brain maturation of infants at risk for neurodevelopment problems.


CONCLUSIONS
Changes in EEG-sleep behavior in the preterm infant may represent altered activity-dependent development of neural circuitry, resulting in remodeling of the immature brain as a reflection of adaptation to conditions of prematurity.
Scher
Mark S
MS
Developmental Neurophysiology Laboratory, Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case Western Reserve University, 11100 Euclid Avenue, OH 44106-6090, USA. mss20@po.cwru.edu
Jones
Bobby L
BL
Steppe
Doris A
DA
Cork
Daniel L
DL
Seltman
Howard J
HJ
Banks
David L
DL
D001921:Brain / Q000254:growth & development*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D007752:Obstetric Labor, Premature / Q000503:physiopathology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D012890:Sleep / Q000502:physiology*