Attention Networks In Benign Epilepsy Childrenwith Centrotemporal Spikes

Objective Recent research in attention has involved three networks of anatomical areas that carry out the functions of alerting, orienting and executive control. There have been extensive cognitive and neuroimaging studies of these networks in adults. The attentional network test(ANT), designed by Fan, have been used to measure the efficiency of the three networks with adults. In previous work we found that children work best when there is a story and when there is clear feedback on their performance. In the child version of the ANT one or five yellow fish replaced the arrows that typically appear in the task. We invite the children to help us feed the central fish by pressing a button( left or right) corresponding to the direction in which middle fish is swimming. Benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes(BECT) is one of the most commom children epilepsy syndromes and represents about 20%. Although BECT was considereded a benigh form of children epilepsy in which showed normal development, the risk of cognition impairment is higher than that healthy sex- and agematched children. Attentional function, as a construct of cognitive psychology, can be considered a building block for other more complex forms of cognitive activity. There is no clear research about attentional networks in BECT. We want to investigate the characteristics of attentional networks impairment in BECT using ANT(child version) and the risk factors of this disease.Methods The attentional networks test(child version) was performed in benign epilepsy children with centrotemporal spikes( n=75) with normal controls( n=75) on the efficiency of three anatomicaly defined attention networks: alerting,orienting, and executive control.Results 1 、 The correct rate of attention network test was significantly lower(P=0.000) in benign epilepsy children with centrotemporal spikes(95.77%±5.63%)than that in normal controls(98.55%±1.80%). The Grand mean effect was significantly higher( P=0.000) in benign epilepsy children with centrotemporal spikes((946.87±199.82)ms) than that in normal controls((729.00±146.75)ms. The orienting networks effects( 29(12,56)ms) was higher in benign epilepsy children with centrotemporal spikes than in normal controls(51(21,78)ms) with significant difference, however the difference in alerting networks effects was without significant difference. There were significant difference in the executive control networks effects between the two group(Z=-2.146, P=0.032). 2、Logistic regression analysis showed that the age on onset of the children was an independent risk factor of the correct rate of attention network test and the grand mean effect(95% CI:1.193~2.807,OR=1.830,P=0.006;95% CI:1.176~2.275,OR=1.635,P=0.003).Conclusion Our study suggests that the benign epilepsy children with centrotemporal spikes have impaiment of attention networks, the age on onset have a significant impact on the attention of children with Rolandic epilepsy.