Bablu Lal Rajak¹, Meena Gupta¹, Dinesh Bhatia^1,, Arun Mukherjee², Sudip Paul¹, Tapas Kumar Sinha³

Cerebral palsy (CP) is a non-progressive neurological motor disorder affecting children that are often accompanied by disturbances of sensation, perception, epilepsy and secondary musculoskeletal problems. These problems arise due to disturbed cortical or subcortical excitability leading to abnormal electrophysiological brain activity in these children. In order to control the abnormal brain activity, repetitive Transcranial magnetic stimulation (r-TMS) therapy was employed. The present work analyzes the electroencephalogram (EEG) signal before and after r-TMS therapy of spastic CP children and compared it with the power spectrum of normal healthy children. EEG recording was performed on all the twenty selected subjects using four electrodes placed on pathway known for motor control and planning, namely C3-C4 and F3-F4. The artifact-free EEG signals of 15 minutes duration was extracted for spectral analysis using Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) algorithm to obtain power density spectrum (PSD). The PSD revealed high power peak at frequency of 50 Hz and smaller or none at 100 Hz, for all healthy subjects. In case of spastic CP children, peak at 100 Hz were prominent prior to r-TMS therapy and at 50 Hz it was found to be quite low to none. After therapy, there was a shift in the high intensity peak from 100Hz to 50Hz with the peak at 100Hz being significantly reduced. 50Hz peak obtained in CP patients matched with those observed in normal children, thus showing the effectiveness of r-TMS therapy in controlling abnormal brain activity in spastic CP patients.

Cerebral palsy, Power Spectrum Density, Electroencephalogram (EEG), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Fast Fourier Transformation