Cano-Celestino MG, Rodríguez-Leyva I, Ortíz-Nesme FJ, Bravo-Oro A, Zermeño-Guerra A, Navarro-Sánchez MA, Gaytán-Hernández D

Language: Spanish
References: 19
Page: 68-75
PDF size: 222.25 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The causes that lead to the manifestation of a seizure caused by the reading of printed texts in reading epilepsy (RE) are not entirely clear. Since its definition, a variety of theories have been provided, but the study of disease related to typographic design is almost inexistent. Objective: To demonstrate that the factors associated with family, size and length of line in printed texts, are related to the facilitation of abnormal electroencephalographic activity during the reading aloud. Methods: We selected two populations of 10 subjects each (control and experimental) of both genders aged 10-25 years, to document the possible difference in brain electrical activity of healthy persons affected with respect to absence epilepsy and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, two types of epilepsies associated with RE In the design of the reading test readability factors were applied to optimal and minimal letterpress printed texts. The electroencephalogram included three variables: baseline (RB), hyperventilation (HV) and reading (LT). Results: We analyzed changes in two sets: HV and RB, and RB and LT. A significant difference was observed in the second case (p = 0.014), attributing its cause to reading. The LT caused in 13 subjects (9 experimental, 4 controls) abnormal electrical brain activity (p ‹ 0.05). The short column width was a factor related with the increase of abnormal brain electrical activity in the population studied, being more frequent reboots (p = 0.019) and repetitions (p = 0.005). Conclusions: Reading aloud and eyestrain are dependent variables using certain typographical legibility factors, which may lead to RE. These results should be confirmed in future studies.

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