Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Medicine - Department of Neurophysiology

Introduction: Autistic disorder has been defined as a neurodevelopmental disorder with associated deficits in executive function, emotional, language and social function. There are often regions of brain dysfunction associated with neural connectivity anomalies in autism. Objectives: The current study aimed to study the quantitative EEG findings in autistic children, and compare it to normal control. Results: There were statistically significant differences in EEG power, symmetry, delta alpha ratio and coherence between autistic and control groups with excessive absolute of delta and theta power especially at frontal region. There was also global reduction in relative alpha and beta power especially in frontal, central and posterior regions in autistics. There was normal theta beta ratio but elevated alpha delta ratio in Fz and Pz midline sites (P= 0.02 and 0.05 respectively). Also there was a pattern of underconnectivity and over connectivity when measuring the intra and interhemispheric coherence in autistics compared to control group. Conclusions: These results suggested regional dysfunction of brain in autistics along with a pattern of abnormal neural connectivity which could be the major deficit leading to autistic symptomatology

Issued also as CD