One of the patient, whom I looking for within my project, started to suffer from new type of seizures, which seem to be connected to sleep state. Exactly from the age of 4.5 years the new type of seizures occurs. They look like complex partial seizures (CPS) from premotor cortex (convulsions of limbs, jacksonian march, preservation of consciousness and conversation). There are lots of preliminary benign myoclonies of dream (BMD) of very high amplitude before this kind of seizures (I'm not sure that these are exactly BMD, but recent video-EEG-monitoring showed that they are). Before this age he never had the seizures, which begin from sleep or pre-sleep state, but such CPS were not sparse in awakened life.
The main hypothesis is that something is changed in the physiology of dream with aging. What could it be?
Dear Roman! There are different points of view on the issue. I advise you to read the articles in the appendix to answer the question. Vladimir
Dear Vladimir, thank you very much. These are very interesting sources.
Dear Vladimir. I've read the designated apers and found several ideas. BTW:
1.1. Monophasic sleep emerges in early childhood (ages 3 — 5 years) when naps cease to be a regular occurence. Most children stop napping between the ages of 3 and 5 years.
1.2. The developmental pattern of SWS (slow-wave sleep) reflects the changing EEG amplitude that may be related to the age specific «programming» alterations in synaptic connectivity among neurons and changes in neuronal, neurotransmitter, or neuroreceptor properties.
1.3. The age at which SWA (slow-wave activity) becomes the sleep homeostatic marker is not known.
2.1. From their first appearance, K-complexes increase in amplitude to reach a maximum around 3 — 5 years of age.
2.2. From 5 to 19 years of age, the percentage of REM remains relatively stable with an increase in N2 sleep and concominant decease in SWS.
As well as I downloaded several (dozens) new sources to investigate. Anyway, taking into account that SWA is a epileptiform pattern, this looks like interesting hypothesis, which could be precisely studied.
Thank you very much.
Dear Roman, please pay attention to the formation of postnatal many new contacts between populations of neurons. Neural networks combine different populations of cells. In the brainstem neural network coordinate breathing with voluntary and involuntary speech. All this is accompanied by a rearrangement of neuronal population activity in the brainstem and cerebral cortex. This is reflected in brain activity during sleep and wakefulness.
Vladimir
I think that the connections between neurons are formed constantly, aren't they? Anyway, in this particular case the onset of new type of seizures was very discrete. It looked like somebody just switched something on (or off). But if I understand right, the connections between neurons were formed long before 4.5 years of life.
At the end of pre-natal periods neurons that do not have established contacts with other cells begin to die by apoptosis. After the birth of a lot of new input signals from the systems of vision, hearing, smell, taste, tactile ... This leads to the formation of new neural networks ... (more, please watch my previous letter). Incidentally, such an explosive nature of the flow of information immediately after birth in a person's life is no longer the case.
But I ask about 4.5-year child, in whom all basic neuronetworks are already formed, as I think.
Thank you both for the question and the information. As per Vladimir, through mainly the first five years of age, neurons that do not have established contacts with other cells begin to die by apoptosis. That is why the first five years are of the most important periods of children education. By 4.5 years of age, significant changes that occurred through previous years will maximized their phenomenology. Hope these pennies are of help.
Dear Adel, excellent, and thank you for understanding. Vladimir
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