Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Search in posts
Search in pages
Filter by Categories
Book Review
Brief Report
Case Letter
Case Report
Case Series
Commentary
Current Issue
Editorial
Erratum
Guest Editorial
Images
Images in Neurology
Images in Neuroscience
Images in Neurosciences
Letter to Editor
Letter to the Editor
Letters to Editor
Letters to the Editor
Media and News
None
Notice of Retraction
Obituary
Original Article
Point of View
Position Paper
Review Article
Short Communication
Systematic Review
Systematic Review Article
Technical Note
Techniques in Neurosurgery
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Search in posts
Search in pages
Filter by Categories
Book Review
Brief Report
Case Letter
Case Report
Case Series
Commentary
Current Issue
Editorial
Erratum
Guest Editorial
Images
Images in Neurology
Images in Neuroscience
Images in Neurosciences
Letter to Editor
Letter to the Editor
Letters to Editor
Letters to the Editor
Media and News
None
Notice of Retraction
Obituary
Original Article
Point of View
Position Paper
Review Article
Short Communication
Systematic Review
Systematic Review Article
Technical Note
Techniques in Neurosurgery
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Search in posts
Search in pages
Filter by Categories
Book Review
Brief Report
Case Letter
Case Report
Case Series
Commentary
Current Issue
Editorial
Erratum
Guest Editorial
Images
Images in Neurology
Images in Neuroscience
Images in Neurosciences
Letter to Editor
Letter to the Editor
Letters to Editor
Letters to the Editor
Media and News
None
Notice of Retraction
Obituary
Original Article
Point of View
Position Paper
Review Article
Short Communication
Systematic Review
Systematic Review Article
Technical Note
Techniques in Neurosurgery
View/Download PDF

Translate this page into:

Letter to the Editor
11 (
2
); 359-360
doi:
10.1055/s-0040-1709264

Electroencephalography as a Diagnostic Aid in a Girl with Neuroregression and Stereotypies

Department of Neurology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Near Diary Circle, Hosur Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Department of Human Genetics, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Near Diary Circle, Hosur Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Hansashree Padmanabha, MBBS, MD, DM Department of Neurology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Near Diary Circle Hosur Road, Bengaluru, 560029, Karnataka India hansa777@gmail.com

Licence
This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Disclaimer:
This article was originally published by Thieme Medical and Scientific Publishers Private Ltd. and was migrated to Scientific Scholar after the change of Publisher.

Electroencephalography (EEG) in Rett’s syndrome is usually abnormal, even in the absence of clinical seizures, and it varies depending on the clinical stage of disease. The authors describe the developmental EEG pattern in a 3-year-old girl with Rett’s syndrome and highlight the importance of routinely performing EEG in a girl child presenting with language regression and stereotypies.

A 3-year-old girl, firstborn of nonconsanguineous couple, presented with regression of language milestones from 1½ years of age. In addition, she had loss of purposeful hand skills, repeated hand mouthing, teeth grinding, and occasional hyperventilating episodes. Family history was noncontributory. On examination, the child was alert, active with preserved eye contact; had near-continuous hand flapping, and hand squeezing movements with a head circumference of 41 cm (Z score, <−3; World Health Organization [WHO]). A clinical possibility of Rett’s syndrome was considered. On investigating, EEG during sleep showed frequent, bilateral, independent, centroparietal spikes, and spike-wave discharges with bursts of synchronous slow waves and paucity of sleep markers. Brainstem auditory evoked response was normal. MRI brain showed diffuse cerebral atrophy. The genetic analysis detected a heterozygous nonsense pathogenic variant, a premature termination codon in exon-3 of the methyl-CpG-binding protein-2 gene (p.Arg282Ter) confirming the diagnosis.

A characteristic developmental EEG pattern has been described in Rett’s syndrome, which usually correlates with the clinical staging of the disease as proposed by Hagberg and Witt-Engerstrom.1 In stage 1 (early onset stagnation), EEG would usually be normal with the onset of posterior dominant occipital slowing during wakefulness. Stage 2 (rapid destructive stage) is characterized by centrotemporal spikes or sharp-wave discharges in both awake and sleep record. Tactile stimuli and stereotypic hand movements have been reported to precipitate the centrotemporal spikes during stage 2 (Fig. 1). In stage 3 (pseudostationary stage), during wakefulness, there is further background slowing with appearance of multifocal spike or sharp-wave discharges and generalized spike-slow waves with absence of sleep markers in sleep record. At stage-4 (late motor deterioration stage), there will be rhythmic theta slowing in the frontal or the frontocentral regions in addition to stage-3 abnormalities.2 To conclude, characteristic EEG patterns clubbed with clinical features, in short of genetics, acts as a useful diagnostic tool for diagnosing Rett’s syndrome in children.

Fig. 1 Electroencephalogram at sleep during stage 2 of clinical disease; (A) monopolar Montage showing frequent, bilateral, independent, centro-parietal spikes of 1 to 2 Hz, 50–100 μV in C3, P3, C4, P4 (red arrow), and spike-wave discharges with bursts of synchronous slow waves (green arrow) and paucity of sleep markers; (B) bipolar Montage showing similar findings.

Fig. 1 Electroencephalogram at sleep during stage 2 of clinical disease; (A) monopolar Montage showing frequent, bilateral, independent, centro-parietal spikes of 1 to 2 Hz, 50–100 μV in C3, P3, C4, P4 (red arrow), and spike-wave discharges with bursts of synchronous slow waves (green arrow) and paucity of sleep markers; (B) bipolar Montage showing similar findings.

Conflicts of interest

None declared.

References

  1. , , . Rett syndrome: a suggested staging system for describing impairment profile with increasing age towards adolescence. Am J Med Genet Suppl. 1986;1:47-59.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. , . Neurophysiology of Rett syndrome. J Child Neurol. 2005;20(9):740-746.
    [Google Scholar]

Fulltext Views
960

PDF downloads
186
View/Download PDF
Download Citations
BibTeX
RIS
Show Sections