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Conclusions-There were reduced temporal NAA/Cr and NAA/Cho ratios, suggesting neuronal loss or damage, associated with past or present poor seizure control in the patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, but it does not exclude the possibility of a future complete seizure control (seizure free patients with temporal lobe epilepsy at the time of 1 H-MRS). This study warrants further 1 H-MRS investigation with a larger series of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy. (J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 1998;65:518-522)

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Summary Benign focal epilepsy in childhood with centro-temporal spikes (BECTS) is one of the most common forms of idiopathic epilepsy, with onset from age 3 to 14 years. Although the prognosis for children with BECTS is excellent, some studies have revealed neuropsychological deficits in many domains, including language. Auditory event-related potentials (AERPs) reflect activation of different neuronal populations and are suggested to contribute to the evaluation of auditory discrimination (N1), attention allocation and phonological categorization (N2), and echoic memory (mismatch negativity -MMN). The scarce existing literature about this theme motivated the present study, which aims to investigate and document the existing AERP changes in a group of children with BECTS.AERPs were recorded, during the day, to pure and vocal tones and in a conventional auditory oddball paradigm in five children with BECTS (aged 8-12; mean = 10 years; male = 5) and in six gender and age-matched controls. Results revealed high amplitude of AERPs for the group of children with BECTS with a slight latency delay more pronounced in fronto-central electrodes.Children with BECTS may have abnormal central auditory processing, reflected by electrophysiological measures such as AERPs. In advance, AERPs seem a good tool to detect and reliably reveal cortical excitability in children with typical BECTS.

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