Localização de Fontes de Descargas Generalizadas em Pacientes com Epilepsia Mioclônica Juvenil

Abstract

One important information for the classification of epilepsy is the cortical localization of the discharges source. Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is an idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) that typically presents generalized tonic-clonic, myoclonic, or absence seizures, or a combination of these. In typical cases of JME, the seizures are usually bilateral and symmetric, and EEG shows generalized interictal epileptiform discharges and a generalized seizure pattern that also is bilaterally synchronous. Despite of the generalized pattern of this type of epilepsy, there are some electroencephalographic and clinical features that suggest focal origin for the discharges. In this work, EEG recordings of six patients were analyzed in order to find evidences for this cortical origin in JME. The analysis of the signals was based on independent component analysis (ICA) for separating epileptiform discharges from artifacts and other brain sources; then the discharge components were used to spatially localize its source. In the six patients the dipole sources were localized mainly in the frontal region, what suggests an important participation of the frontal lobe for this kind of epilepsy.