Benign focal epileptiform discharges in childhood migraine (BFEDC)

Interictal EEGs were studied in 100 children, ages 3 to 15 years. Records were interpreted independent of history; 89% were normal, 9% had benign focal epileptiform discharges (BFEDC), one had temporal spikes, and one had background slowing. The nine patients with BFEDC did not differ from the others. None had epilepsy. This incidence of 9% is higher (p less than 0.0001) than the incidence of BFEDC in the normal population (1.9%). The significance of this finding is not clear, but migraine and benign focal epilepsy of childhood may be genetically linked, or the vascular abnormality of migraine may cause brain injury to produce sharp waves of low epileptogenicity. These results do not suggest that headaches are epileptic.