Overlooked nighttime spikes on EEGs may reflect an underlying brain injury

Children with developmental delay or autism may have unrecognized epilepsy-like brain activity during sleep, report researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital. These nighttime electrical spikes, detectable only on EEGs, occur even in some children without known epilepsy and appear to result from early strokes or other early life injuries to the developing brain, the study found. Results were published online April 25 by the journal Neurology.