Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy: Clinical characteristics, standard and quantitative electroencephalography analyses

OBJECTIVES: Most studies comparing inter-ictal background quantitative electroencephalography (EEG) measures in generalized epilepsies with normal controls do not specifically determine patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) as a separate group. The study aims at comparing absolute spectral power and global field coherence in various frequency bands between patients diagnosed exclusively with JME and 10 healthy controls, and correlating significantly different quantitative EEG measures with various clinical characteristics and standard EEG abnormalities. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Clinical and EEG data were collected from 10 patients with JME and 10 healthy controls. Spectral power and global field spectral coherence were calculated using Welch's averaged periodogram method. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, Fisher's exact test and t-test. RESULTS: Statistically significant (or trend level) higher power (global α and θ, frontal α and θ, left temporal θ, right occipital α, δ and γ(1), and central δ, θ, α, β, and γ(2)) and coherence (global α and γ(1)) was found in JME patients when compared to controls. Significant correlation of left frontal and central θ-power with presence of absence seizures (negative), central δ-, and θ-power with the presence of psychiatric comorbidity and central θ-power with frequency of myoclonic seizures was found. CONCLUSION: Findings on global–frontal and temporal–occipital power support mild diffuse epileptogenic state and θ-activity as an endophenotype concepts in JME patients, respectively; findings suggest future studies on JME to include psychiatric comorbidity while selecting the sample; some spectral measures (e.g., central θ-power) do relate to progression of JME while some do not.