EC Paediatrics

This study concerns the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy in the pediatric Ivorian population, aged between 3 and 10 years, with SMR - promotion Neurofeedback training - protocols for the enhancement of sensory-motor rhythms. 87 children (45 female, 42 male) have been recruited at the Don Orione Hospital, Bonoua. A large portion of patients has a diagnosis of epilepsy following neonatal cerebral palsy; in these cases, epilepsy was treated as a clinical condition with possible remission, unlike the other non-reversible clinical dimensions. The entire population shows on average a long-lasting statistically significant reduction in the number of weekly seizure episodes (-17.0 [-6.0, -31.7] at T₁, 10 days after the treatment, -10.3 [-22.7, -1.0] at T₂, 30 days after the treatment and -4.4 [-12.0, 2.0] at T₃, 90 days after the treatment) along with an increase of the relative power of SMR band (12-15 Hz) by 11.4% [6.2%, 19.7%] between the first and the last neurofeedback session. By presenting the physiological rationale underlying the functioning of neurofeedback in epilepsy, our study aims to contribute to the neuroscientific understanding of the sensory-motor cortical rhythm mechanisms in this pathology and to enrich one of the possible research directions that seem promising. Aware of the limited scientific literature on the subject, the factors underlying the effectiveness of the protocols are presented and discussed in terms of crisis reduction, improvement of patients’ behavioral symptoms and quality of life, results that seem to provide elements for thought for a rigorous scientific investigation.

 Keywords: Neurofeedback; Electroencephalography; Cerebral Palsy; Sensory-Motor Cortical Rhythm

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