Prenatal exposure to antiepileptic drugs and early processing of emotionally relevant sounds

Mari Videman; Susanna Stjerna; Valtteri Wikström; Taina Nybo; Reina Roivainen; Sampsa Vanhatalo; Minna Huotilainen; Eija Gaily

doi:10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.106503

Prenatal exposure to antiepileptic drugs and early processing of emotionally relevant sounds

Epilepsy Behav. 2019 Nov;100(Pt A):106503. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.106503. Epub 2019 Sep 13.

Authors

Mari Videman¹, Susanna Stjerna², Valtteri Wikström³, Taina Nybo⁴, Reina Roivainen⁴, Sampsa Vanhatalo², Minna Huotilainen⁵, Eija Gaily⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatric Neurology, New Children's Hospital, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Finland. Electronic address: mari.videman@hus.fi.
² Department of Children's Clinical Neurophysiology, HUS Medical Imaging Center and New Children's Hospital, Helsinki University Hospital and University of Helsinki, Finland.
³ Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland.
⁴ Clinical Neurosciences, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Finland.
⁵ Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Department of Psychology and Logopedics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki, Finland; CICERO Learning Network, Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland; FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study, Turku Brain and Mind Center, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Turku, Finland.
⁶ Department of Pediatric Neurology, New Children's Hospital, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Finland.

PMID: 31525552
DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.106503

Abstract

Introduction: Prenatal exposure to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) is associated with developmental compromises in verbal intelligence and social skills in childhood. Our aim was to evaluate whether a multifeature Mismatch Negativity (MMN) paradigm assessing semantic and emotional components of linguistic and emotional processing would be useful to detect possible alterations in early auditory processing of newborns with prenatal AED exposure.

Material and methods: Data on AED exposure, pregnancy outcome, neuropsychological evaluation of the mothers, information on maternal epilepsy type, and a structured neurological examination of the newborn were collected prospectively. Blinded to AED exposure, we compared a cohort of 36 AED-exposed with 46 control newborns at the age of two weeks by measuring MMN with a multifeature paradigm with six linguistically relevant deviant sounds and three emotionally uttered sounds.

Results: Frontal responses for the emotionally uttered stimulus Happy differed significantly in the exposed newborns compared with the control newborns. In addition, responses to sounds with or without emotional component differed in newborns exposed to multiple AEDs compared with control newborns or to newborns exposed to only one AED.

Conclusions: These preliminary findings suggest that prenatal AED exposure may alter early processing of emotionally and linguistically relevant sound information.

Keywords: Epilepsy; Evoked potentials; Fetal; Intrauterine; Newborn; Pregnancy.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anticonvulsants / adverse effects*
Attention / physiology
Auditory Perception / physiology*
Auditory Perceptual Disorders / chemically induced*
Auditory Perceptual Disorders / diagnosis
Case-Control Studies*
Cohort Studies
Developmental Disabilities / chemically induced
Developmental Disabilities / diagnosis
Emotions / physiology*
Epilepsy / drug therapy
Female
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
Neurologic Examination
Pregnancy
Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects* / chemically induced
Psycholinguistics
Speech Perception / physiology

Substances

Anticonvulsants