LOCALIZATION ANALYSIS OF NEURONAL ACTIVITIES IN BENIGN ROLANDIC EPILEPSY USING MAGNETOENCEPHALOGRAPHY

Benign epilepsy of childhood with rolandic spikes (BECRS) is an electr oclinical syndrome characterized by partial sensorimotor seizures with centrotemporal spikes. We report a detailed localization analysis of spontaneous magnetic brain activities in seven BECRS patients using ma gnetoencephalography (MEG). All patients had BECRS diagnosis with typi cal seizures and electro encephalographic findings and five patients h ad minor psychomotor deficits. MEG was recorded over both parieto-temp oral regions using a 2x37-channel biomagnetic system. The collected da ta were digitally bandpass-filtered (2-6, 14-30, or 1-70 Hz) to analyz e slow-and fast-wave magnetic activities and rolandic spikes. Slow-wav e activity was increased in four hemispheres of three patients. Increa sed fast-wave activity was found in all five patients with minor neuro psychological deficits. The presence of increased fast-wave magnetic b rain activity appeared to cause functional anomalies in the higher bra in function processes. In the spike analysis, the dipoles of rolandic spikes which constantly manifested anterior positivity in direction we re concentrated in the superior rolandic region in four cases and the inferior rolandic region in three cases. The localizations of increase d slow-and fast-wave activities were identical with those of the spike s. The seizure profiles were frequently characterized by the spike loc ations. Source localizations of the focal brain activities and rolandi c spikes by MEG will contribute to the different diagnosis and pathoph ysiological elucidation of BECRS. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.