Cerebral blood flow in epileptic children during the interseizure period

Abstract

Determinations of cerebral blood flow (CBF) of 10 children subject to a variety of epileptiform seizures and in 11 normal children showed a significantly lower mean CBF in the epileptic children, during the period between seizures but at least 3 days after the last anti-convulsant medication. Values for those children with mild seizure proneness were closer to those of normal children than were those of more severe cases, while 2 additional children who were not included in the mean calculation because they could not be taken off medication without precipitating a seizure, had the lowest CBF values, 77 and 63 cc/100 g/min, of the entire group studied. It is concluded that this study supports the hypothesis that there are functional alterations of cerebral vasculature in epileptics. On the other hand, there did not appear to be any significant variation of CO2 content of arterial and jugular venous blood between the 2 groups.