Daytime cerebral electrical activity in patients with restless legs syndrome

Abstract

It is aimed to investigate whether the restless legs syndrome (RLS) relates to change in the cerebral electrical activity spreading to daylight hours by the way of comparing the awake EEG of patients who were diagnosed as RLS with the healthy control group. The study was conducted on 23 patients diagnosed as RLS and 20 healthy volunteers. Information about the history of RLS study group, biochemical parameters in both groups, 18-channel scalp EEG recordings and polysomnographic recordings were evaluated. In the patient group, beta band in background activity in 13, rare slow-wave paroxysms in the ground alpha band in 8 and alpha band in 2 patients were detected, while in the control group alpha band at 15, the beta band in 4 people and mild paroxysmal nonspecific findings in 1 person were detected. In our study mostly seen background activity featured in the EEG of RLS patients were found to be the beta activity. This led us to consider that beta band may be a common finding in RLS especially in ones with insomnia.