Effect of melatonin in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities and sleep disorders.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to assess the efficacy and side effects of melatonin use in a population of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities who had sleep disorders.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study conducted in the pediatric neurology clinic at King Abdulaziz Medical City. A designed questionnaire was given to the parents to inquire about the sleep characteristics of their children before and after using melatonin.

The Leukodystrophy Spectrum in Saudi Arabia: Epidemiological, Clinical, Radiological, and Genetic Data.

Leukodystrophies (LDs) are inherited heterogeneous conditions that affect the central nervous system with or without peripheral nerve involvement. They are individually rare, but collectively, they are common. Thirty disorders were included by the Global Leukodystrophy Initiative Consortium (GLIA) as LDs.

Acute Necrotizing Encephalopathy of Childhood: A Multicenter Experience in Saudi Arabia.

Acute necrotizing encephalopathy of childhood (ANEC) is a rapidly progressing encephalopathy characterized by fever, depressed level of consciousness, and seizures. Diagnosis depends on clinical presentation and characteristic neuroimaging findings of abnormal signal intensity involving the thalami as well as the supra and infra-tentorial areas. Treatment modalities are not well-established; empirical treatment with antibiotics and antiviral agents is the initial step, followed by steroids and immunoglobulin, as well as supportive care.

Misleading Focal Clinical, Neurophysiologic, and Imaging Features in 2 Children With Generalized Epilepsy Who Underwent Invasive Electroencephalographic (EEG) Monitoring.

Children and adults with genetic generalized epilepsy may have focal clinical seizure symptoms as well as electroencephalographic (EEG) findings. This may pose a diagnostic challenge to clinicians, especially when concomitant focal neuroimaging findings exist and the epilepsy is medically refractory. We sought to highlight the challenges that clinicians may face through the description of 2 children with suspected genetic generalized epilepsy who had both focal seizure symptoms and EEG/neuroimaging findings and underwent invasive EEG monitoring.

The landscape of early infantile epileptic encephalopathy in a consanguineous population.

Purpose: Epileptic encephalopathies (EE), are a group of age-related disorders characterized by intractable seizures and electroencephalogram (EEG) abnormalities that may result in cognitive and motor delay. Early infantile epileptic encephalopathies (EIEE) manifest in the first year of life. EIEE are highly heterogeneous genetically but a genetic etiology is only identified in half of the cases, typically in the form of de novo dominant mutations.

Truncating biallelic variant in DNAJA1, encoding the co-chaperone Hsp40, is associated with intellectual disability and seizures.

Intellectual disability poses a huge burden on the health care system, and it is one of the most common referral reasons to the genetic and child neurology clinic. Intellectual disability (ID) is genetically heterogeneous, and it is associated with several other neurological conditions. Exome sequencing is a robust genetic tool and has revolutionized the process of molecular diagnosis and novel gene discovery.

Prevalence and outcomes of Guillain-Barré syndrome among pediatrics in Saudi Arabia: a 10-year retrospective study.

Background: Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a progressive acute form of paralysis most probably secondary to an immune-mediated process. GBS among Saudis has been seldom investigated, which leaves both clinicians and researchers with scarcity in knowledge. Therefore, this study aims to assess the prevalence and clinical prognosis of GBS among pediatrics admitted with acute paralysis at a large healthcare facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

"Saved by the Bell": Near SUDEP during intracranial EEG monitoring.

SUDEP is the sudden unexpected death of a person with epilepsy, when no structural or toxicological cause of death can be found. The majority of witnessed cases are reported to be preceded by a convulsive seizure and postictal hypoventilation. Here, we report an 8-year-old girl with drug-resistant focal seizures secondary to a focal cortical dysplasia type IIb.