title: Auditory event-related potentials in children with benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes.
abstract: Benign focal epilepsy in childhood with centro-temporal spikes (BECTS) is one of the most common forms of idiopathic epilepsy, with onset from age 3 to 14 years. Although the prognosis for children with BECTS is excellent, some studies have revealed neuropsychological deficits in many domains, including language. Auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) reflect activation of different neuronal populations and are suggested to contribute to the evaluation of auditory discrimination (N1), attention allocation and phonological categorization (N2), and echoic memory (mismatch negativity--MMN). The scarce existing literature about this theme motivated the present study, which aims to investigate and document the existing AERP changes in a group of children with BECTS. AERPs were recorded, during the day, to pure and vocal tones and in a conventional auditory oddball paradigm in five children with BECTS (aged 8-12; mean=10 years; male=5) and in six gender and age-matched controls. Results revealed high amplitude of AERPs for the group of children with BECTS with a slight latency delay more pronounced in fronto-central electrodes. Children with BECTS may have abnormal central auditory processing, reflected by electrophysiological measures such as AERPs. In advance, AERPs seem a good tool to detect and reliably reveal cortical excitability in children with typical BECTS.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Audiology, Department of Audiology, School of Allied Health Sciences, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal; Laboratory of Neuropsychophysiology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal. Electronic address: dts@estsp.ipp.pt.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tomé
authors.affiliation: Serviço de Neuropediatria, Hospital de São João, Portugal.
authors.forename: Mafalda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sampaio
authors.affiliation: Serviço de Neurologia, Hospital de São João, Portugal.
authors.forename: José
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Mendes-Ribeiro
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuropsychophysiology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Barbosa
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuropsychophysiology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: João
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Marques-Teixeira
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000293:Adolescent; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography; D019305:Epilepsy, Rolandic / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013061:Speech Acoustics
keywords: Auditory processing; Benign rolandic epilepsy; MMN; N1; N2b