Behavioral and fMRI responses to fearful faces are altered in benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BCECTS)

• DOI: 10.1111/epi.13858
• Publication Date: 2017-08-01T09:29:41Z
• Authors: Carolina Ciumas; Agathe Laurent; Mani Saignavongs; Faustine Ilski; Julitta de Belles...; Eleni Panagiotakaki; Karine Ostrowsky‐...; Alexis Arzimanoglou; Vania Herbillon; Danielle Ibarrola; Philippe Ryvlin
• Keywords: Cerebral Cortex; Male; Time Factors; Functional Neuroimaging; Happiness; Brain; Fear; Epilepsy, Rolandic; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Corpus Striatum; Facial Expression; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; Social Perception; Seizures; Case-Control Studies; Humans; Female; Caudate Nucleus; Child; Evoked Potentials; Facial Recognition

Summary Objective We hypothesized that children with benign childhood epilepsy centrotemporal spikes ( BCECTS ) might have altered social cognitive skills and underlying neural networks. Methods studied 13 patients 11 age‐matched controls using event‐related functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI an emotional discrimination task consisting of viewing happy, fearful, scrambled, neutral faces. Behavioral performance measured during the was correlated clinical variables behavioral ratings. Results In comparison controls, performing a fearful faces detection showed significantly reduced bilateral activation in insular cortex, caudate, lentiform nuclei, as well increased response time. The percentage errors made by negatively age, finding not observed controls. patients, accuracy positively time since last seizure. above abnormalities were happy task, except for slower compared to Significance Our study suggests is associated cognition network function, particularly identification age dependency some these findings supports view delayed maturation spiking cortical regions underlie dysfunction .