Abstracts

Rationale: Longitudinal neurophysiological brain recordings offer a wealth of information valuable for monitoring and diagnosing patient health. However, current method of EEG interpretation is limited to subjective opinions of physicians. Quantifiable methods of EEG interpretation can make more accurate diagnoses or prognoses as well as provide information not seen by the human eye. Microstate analysis of EEG recordings considers stable brain states each characterized by unique topography of global brain activity. Adult studies identified 4 stable microstates in adults at resting and during different cognitive tasks. However, no studies have been done on children. We are presenting novel topographical maps in children. Methods: We analyzed microstate parameters (including coverage, duration, occurrence frequency, transition probabilities, global explained variance and amplitude) of routine awake EEG recordings of children below six years of age with no developmental delay and compared them with the microstate parameters of children of same age with development challenges. Results: On neither of the groups, the acquired microstates did not follow the topography reorted in adults. Extracted microstate variables showed complex and variable patterns with high density peaks in the frontal area of the microstate classes. Conclusions: To our knowledge, this is the first study looking at microstate patterns in children. We hypothesize that microstates in children are different from adults due to children’s developing brain myelination. This might be contributing to an unstable topography as compared to adults or might be a signature of a myelination maturation pattern. Further analysis with a larger sample size will assist our aasumptions. Funding: This work prepared by employees of the Federal Government as part of their official duties.