Abstract
Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in children. Diagnosing epilepsy in children can be very challenging, especially as it often coexists with neurodevelopmental conditions like autism and ADHD. Functional brain networks obtained from neuroimaging and electrophysiological data in wakefulness and sleep have been shown to contain signatures of neurological disorders, and can potentially support the diagnosis and management of co-occurring neurodevelopmental conditions. In this work, we use electroencephalography (EEG) recordings from children, in restful wakefulness and sleep, to extract functional connectivity networks in different frequency bands. We explore the relationship of these networks with epilepsy diagnosis and with measures of neurodevelopmental traits, obtained from questionnaires used as screening tools for autism and ADHD. We explore differences in network markers between children with and without epilepsy in wake and sleep, and quantify the correlation between such markers and measures of neurodevelopmental traits. Our findings highlight the importance of considering the interplay between epilepsy and neurodevelopmental traits when exploring network markers of epilepsy.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | e0309243 |
| Number of pages | 14 |
| Journal | PLoS ONE |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 8 |
| Early online date | 26 Aug 2024 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 26 Aug 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © 2024 Junges et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Data Access Statement
Data cannot be shared publicly because participants did not give their consent to open sharing of their data and this was not covered in the ethical approval of this study. Data contain potentially sensitive patient information (restrictions imposed by North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee). For data availability please contact the North West - Preston Research Ethics Committee - Ref. 19/NW/0337 ([email protected]).Funding
L.J. acknowledges support from The Waterloo Foundation via a Child Development Fund Research Grant (grant ref. no. 1970-4687). A.W., C.R., and A.P.B. acknowledge support from The Waterloo Foundation (grant ref no. 1970/3346). L.J., D.G. and J.R.T. acknowledge support from the University of Birmingham Dynamic Investment Fund. J.R.T. acknowledges support from the EPSRC (grant ref. no. EP/T027703/1). S.J. acknowledges support from the Alan Turing Institute and the EPSRC (grant ref. EP/N510129/1).
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| University of Birmingham Dynamic Investment Fund | |
| Waterloo Foundation | 1970-4687, 1970/3346 |
| Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council | EP/T027703/1 |
| Alan Turing Institute | EP/N510129/1 |
