BECTS, Epilepsy, Rolandic
Conditions
Keywords
Emotion, Social cognition, Childhood epilepsy
Brief summary
The social processes depend on complex cognitive mechanisms, which involve mainly the frontal and temporal lobe regions. Patients with early onset frontal and temporal lobe lesions might later develop important deficits in social integration. Accordingly, children with early onset temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) demonstrate altered emotion recognition.
Detailed description
Study design: Multicentre, Case-control study. Emotion recognition is a first step for the development of the capacity to judge the thoughts, intentions, and desires of others. In infants, the capacity to identify, distinguish, and interpret emotions is limited, but these processes are developing rapidly and innately during the first years of life, on the same neural bases as those described in adulthood. Children with BECTS show altered social behavior. In fact, deficit in social cognition could derive from brain dysfunction in the frontotemporal regions primarily affected in BECTS, since these regions are also viewed as playing an important role in social cognition and development of social skills. The investigators hypothesized that children with BECTS might have altered social cognitive skills and underlying neural networks.
Interventions
DIAGNOSTIC_TESTIDS;MMSPE;CDI 2;CBCL;tests of facial expression evaluation
Five pictures (including nonfacial features; i.e., hairs) were used for each emotion, giving a total of 25 trials.Stimuli consist of pictures of facial affect taken from the Ekman and Friesen series.
Sponsors
Neuromed IRCCS
Study design
Observational model
CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
6 Years to 11 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* children diagnosed with active BECTS (e.g. having at least one seizure with epileptiform abnormalities at EEG) * treated or not with anti-epileptic drugs; age range between 6 and 11 * infants who have not presented an epileptic seizure within 48 hours before the psychodiagnostic evaluation * patients with a sleep EEG recording; MMSPE (Mini Mental State Pediatric Examination) ≥23.3
Exclusion criteria
* mental retardation * presence of other neurological or severe neuropsychiatric disorders * atypical EEG pattern (awake or asleep)
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Rating of the arousal of facial expressions | an average of 1 year | A neuropsychologist will ask the subjects to evaluate arousal in terms of feeling of high-low energy/wakefulness/alertness by rating each stimulus on a 9-point scale. |
| Rating of the valence of facial expressions | an average of 1 year | A neuropsychologist will ask the subjects to evaluate valence in terms of feeling of high-low pleasantness-unpleasantness by rating each stimulus on a 9-point scale. |
| Number (total amount) of errors in facial emotion recognition | an average of 1 year | A neuropsychologist will sign the number of errors in recognizing each facial emotion expression |
| Rating of the intensity of facial expressions | an average of 1 year | A neuropsychologist will ask the subjects to rate (on a scale from 0 = not at all to 5 = very much) each stimulus with respect to the prototypical expression of that emotion |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| EEG abnormality lateralization and facial emotion recognition | an average of 1 year | The investigators will include in statistical analysis the side (dominant hemisphere vs. non-dominant) of EEGraphic abnormalities on awake/sleep recordings |
Countries
Italy
Contacts
Primary ContactAlfredo D'Aniello, MD
Backup ContactMarco De Risi, PhD
Outcome results
None listed