[Development of the background activity of EEG in children with epilepsy; comparison with normal children].

We investigated the development of the background activity of EEGs in 150 children with epilepsy by means of computerized power spectral analysis, using Fourier transformation by O1 Twenty-seven cases with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE), 30 cases with idiopathic partial epilepsy (IPE), 60 cases with symptomatic partial epilepsy (SPE), 33 cases with cryptogenic partial epilepsy (CPE) and 48 normal children were studied. The records with paroxysmal activity at 01 were excluded in this study. In normal children, total, delta and theta powers showed a significant inverse correlation with age, but alpha-2 and beta-2 powers showed a significant positive correlation with age. In children with epilepsy, there were significant increases of delta and theta powers and a decrease of alpha-2 power compared with normal children. The development of the EEGs was different among the patients with various types of the epileptic syndrome. It was suggested that age, prognosis and anticonvulsants were important factors which influence the EEGs background activity.