ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2021
Focal Sleep Spindle Deficits Reveal Focal Thalamocortical Dysfunction and Predict Cognitive Deficits in Sleep Activated Developmental Epilepsy.
Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 56 papers.
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Who cites it
56 citing papers in PubMed, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fast sleep spindles as a potential prognostic marker of developmental outcome in infantile epileptic spasms syndrome.Epilepsia open · 2026Article
- Excitation/Inhibition Balance as a Mechanistic Link Between Sleep Disturbance and Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Bidirectional Framework.Alpha psychiatry · 2026Review
- Article
- Auditory-evoked changes in slow oscillations and spindles correlate with memory consolidation in children with epilepsy and controls.Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2026Article
- Association of Sleep Spindle Activity With Cognitive Decline in Early Clinical Stages of Alzheimer Disease.Neurology · 2026Article
- Hippocampal interictal discharges induce frontal spindles and enhance spindle-slow oscillation coupling in temporal lobe epilepsy.Clinical neurophysiology practice · 2026Article
- The bidirectional relationship between epilepsy and sleep: a narrative review.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Review
- Human brain imaging with high-density electroencephalography: Techniques and applications.The Journal of physiology · 2026Review
- Elevated Thalamic Blood Flow in Self-Limited Epilepsy with Centrotemporal Spikes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Review
- rTMS Improves Cognition in Patients With Self-Limited Epilepsy With Centrotemporal Spikes With Electrical Status Epilepticus in Sleep via Increase of the Sleep Spindle.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2025Article
- Article
- Interictal network dysfunction and cognitive impairment in epilepsy.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2025Review
- Fast ripple band high-frequency activity associated with thalamic sleep spindles in pediatric epilepsy.Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2025Article
- Mechanistic insights into the interaction between epilepsy and sleep.Nature reviews. Neurology · 2025Review
- Timing is everything: The effect of early-life seizures on developing neuronal circuits subserving spatial memory.Epilepsia open · 2025Review
- Effect of in utero exposure to antiepileptic drugs on cortical networks and neurophysiological outcomes at 6 years.Epilepsia · 2025Article
- Association of Sleep Spindle Rate With Memory Consolidation in Children With Rolandic Epilepsy.Neurology · 2025Article
- Mechanistic insights into the sleep-glymphopathy-cerebral small vessel disease loop: implications for epilepsy pathophysiology and therapy.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Review
- The Posterior Dominant Rhythm Remains Within Normal Limits in the Microgravity Environment.Brain sciences · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
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Abstract
Childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (CECTS) is the most common focal epilepsy syndrome, yet the cause of this disease remains unknown. Now recognized as a mild epileptic encephalopathy, children exhibit sleep-activated focal epileptiform discharges and cognitive difficulties during the active phase of the disease. The association between the abnormal electrophysiology and sleep suggests disruption to thalamocortical circuits. Thalamocortical circuit dysfunction resulting in pathologic epileptiform activity could hinder the production of sleep spindles, a brain rhythm essential for memory processes. Despite this pathophysiologic connection, the relationship between spindles and cognitive symptoms in epileptic encephalopathies has not been previously evaluated. A significant challenge limiting such work has been the poor performance of available automated spindle detection methods in the setting of sharp activities, such as epileptic spikes. Here, we validate a robust new method to accurately measure sleep spindles in patients with epilepsy. We then apply this detector to a prospective cohort of male and female children with CECTS with combined high-density EEGs during sleep and cognitive testing at varying time points of disease. We show that: (1) children have a transient, focal deficit in spindles during the symptomatic phase of disease; (2) spindle rate anticorrelates with spike rate; and (3) spindle rate, but not spike rate, predicts performance on cognitive tasks. These findings demonstrate focal thalamocortical circuit dysfunction and provide a pathophysiological explanation for the shared seizures and cognitive symptoms in CECTS. Further, this work identifies sleep spindles as a potential treatment target of cognitive dysfunction in this common epileptic encephalopathy.
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