Title

Neurophysiological assessment of central sensory perception among children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy

Authors

Sangeeta Gupta¹,*, Anchala Bhardwaj² & Gaurav Gupta³

Affiliation

¹Department of Physiology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India; ²Department of Paediatrics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India; ³Department of General Surgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Sangeeta Gupta - E-mail: drsangeeta77.65@rediffmail.com, drsangeetag@aiimsgorakhpur.edu.in

Anchala Bhardwaj - E-mail: dranchalasingh@gmail.com, dranchalas@aiimsgorakhpur.edu.in
Gaurav Gupta - E-mail: drgaurav75@rediffmail.com, drgauravg@aiimsgorakhpur.edu.in

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received January 1, 2026; Revised January 31, 2026; Accepted January 31, 2026, Published January 31, 2026

Abstract

Somatosensory deficits have gained growing attention in cerebral palsy; therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the central perceptual abnormalities in children with bilateral spastic cerebral palsy (CP). Seventy children (35 children with CP and 35 controls, age-range: 6 months-10 years) were evaluated by somatosensory evoked potentials (SSEP), visual evoked potentials (VEP) and brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) and the association with electroencephalography (EEG), clinical and radiologic findings was sought for. Tibial SSEPs and median SSEPs revealed abnormal cortical response in 77.14 % (27 of 35) and 65.22 % (15 of 23) respectively, 14.29 % (5 of 35) had abnormal BAEP, 18 of 35 (51.4 %) had abnormal VEP, 14 patients (40 %) demonstrated abnormal EEG and 91.43 % had abnormal brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Abnormal tibial SSEPs were statistically correlated with abnormal EEG (p=0.005) and perinatal asphyxia (p=0.01) while abnormal median SSEPs were statistically correlated with abnormal VEP (p=0.0098) and perinatal asphyxia (p=0.03) (chi-square test). Evidences of sensory cortical involvement in CP can help in designing better treatment plans. Cortical SSEPs may further be evaluated in prospective studies to assess their potential utility as a prognostic tool in children with CP.

Keywords

Cerebral palsy, somatosensory evoked potentials, visual evoked potentials and brainstem auditory evoked potentials, spastic, sensory.

Citation

Gupta et al. Bioinformation 22(1): 357-361 (2026)

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.