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Pediatric Neurology Briefs (PNB) has been published monthly since 1987 as a continuing education service designed to expedite and facilitate review of current medical literature concerning pediatric neurology. In 2015, PNB is relaunched as an open access, peer-reviewed, journal with an expanded editorial board. PNB has a new website and content management system capable of organizing peer-review and providing improved indexing, DOI assignment, and online full-text article view. Digitization of back issues, archiving, and inclusion in PubMed are future goals. The new online open access PNB aims to reach more physicians, researchers, and other healthcare providers with highlights of the latest advances in pediatric neurology and commentaries by specialists in the field.

Investigators at University of California, San Diego, and centers in Hawaii and Trondheim, Norway, examined structural growth trajectories and rates of change in the whole brain and regions of interest in infants during the first 3 months after birth.

Investigators from the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, and Okayama University Hospital, Japan, analyzed the high occurrence rate (OR) of interictal high frequency oscillations (HFOs) at 80-200 Hz (ripples) and >200 Hz (fast ripples, FRs).

Investigators at Istanbul University and Mersin University School of Medicine, Turkey, assessed the occurrence, prevalence and clinical characteristics of primary headache in pediatric patients, aged

Researchers at Scripps Research Institute, San Diego, and other centers in California; Johns Hopkins, Baltimore; Vanderbilt University, TN; and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL; searched for de novo mutations in a family with a sporadic case of epileptic encephalopathy.

Investigators from Okayama University and Medical Center report five pediatric patients with ictal fear followed from Jan 2003 to Dec 2012. The age of epilepsy onset ranged from 8 months to 9 years and 10 months.

Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and centers in Frankfurt, Germany, examined 22 patients with the classic phenotype of ataxia-telangiectasia for neurocognitive features, and compared patients with early stage cerebellar disease (group AT-I) versus those with late stage cerebrocerebellar disease (group AT-II).

Investigators at Universite de Lille Nord de France, and other centers in France, report the identification of a novel causative gene for spinocerebellar ataxia 21, an autosomal dominant disorder, initially mapped to chromosome 7 and designated as SCA21.

Investigators at Boston Children's Hospital determined the migraine prescription patterns in 4839 patients, ages 2 to 17 years, treated over a 4-year period.

Investigators at Chonbuk National University Medical School, Korea, report the effects of topiramate on language functions in 38 newly diagnosed epileptic patients, mean age 10 +/- 2 years and 8 months.

Investigators at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, report a 3-year-old female who had presented with seizures at 10 weeks of life.

Investigators at the Mott Children’s Hospital, Ann Arbor, MI, report 4 infants with diffuse brain injury and cerebral atrophy who developed cerebral venous sinus thrombosis and were treated with the low-molecular-weight heparin, enoxaparin.

Investigators from Ankara Pediatrics, Turkey, evaluate the clinical symptoms and etiology in records of 53 patients (32 female) diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) in a child neurology department between 2005 and 2012.

Investigators at UCL Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London, UK, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the effect of cognitive effort during a working memory task as a trigger of myoclonic jerks in 15 unaffected siblings (10 female; age range 18-65 years, median 40 yrs) of 11 patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (6 female; age range 22-54 yrs, median 35).

The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Genetics present a recommended clinical genetics diagnostic approach to the evaluation of intellectual disability or global developmental delays.

Investigators at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, studied the prevalence of hereditary neurometabolic causes of infantile spasms in 80 cases presenting over a 15-year period.

Investigators at Tel Aviv University, Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital, Schneider Children's Medical Center, and other centers in Israel report the clinical presentation of acute encephalopathy in 11 children and the long-term sequelae of 8 who initially survived an episode of thiamine deficiency.

Investigators from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, conducted a retrospective chart review of 48 children (average age at presentation 8.1 yrs, range 5-14 yrs; 73% male) diagnosed with “Alice in Wonderland” syndrome (AWS) or “Alice in Wonderland”-like syndrome between 1993 and 2013.

Investigators at Newcastle University, UK, and Hopitaux de Paris, France, report 5 patients from 3 unrelated families with a strikingly homogeneous clinical entity combining congenital myasthenia with distal muscle weakness and atrophy resembling a distal myopathy.

Investigators from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PA, and McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, CA, report an adolescent learning-disabled girl who presented at age 14 years with an epilepsy syndrome initially diagnosed as juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.

Investigators from Leiden University, the Netherlands, used quantitative MR imaging to study brain microstructure in 30 patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and 22 age-matched controls (age 8-18 years).

Investigators at Robert Debre Hospital and Paris Diderot University, Paris, France, and Basildon University Hospital, Essex, UK, conducted a prospective study of 101 children aged 6-18 years presenting to the ED of a tertiary hospital with moderate to severe headache and focal neurologic deficit with focal brain disturbance.

Investigators at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, report the sensitivity and specificity of the pediatric EMG in the diagnosis of myopathic disorders in patients

Investigators at Asan Children's Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea, performed a retrospective study of the prevalence of ADHD in benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS) and the factors that affect ADHD or attention impairment in patients with BECTS.

Investigators from Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Research Program, Malawi; University of Liverpool, UK; Michigan State University, USA; Vancouver General Hospital, Canada; and Ophthalmology Centers in Edinburgh, UK, review the evidence for associations between retina and brain neurovasculature, and the extent to which malarial retinopathy reflects cerebrovascular damage.

Investigators from Sapienza University, Italy, studied the prevalence and treatment of sleep disorders in children with migraine.

Investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, performed a multicenter, 9-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-optimization study of guanfacine extended release (GXR

Investigators at the Research Institute Brainclinics, Nijmegen, Netherlands, conducted a meta-analysis on the Theta/Beta ratio (TBR) during Eyes Open from location Cz (the electrode halfway between the inion and the nasion) in the EEG of children/adolescents 6-18 years of age with and without ADHD.

Investigators at Auburn University, Huntsville, AL, and other centers, reviewed reports in the literature (1966-May 15, 2014) of priapism associated with methylphenidate (MPH), amphetamines, and atomoxetine used in treatment of ADHD.

Investigators at University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, report cardiac autonomic dysfunction and arterial stiffness among children and adolescents with ADHD treated with stimulants.

Investigators at Utrecht University, the Netherlands; and centers in Australia and Detroit, MI, evaluated the lapses of attention during on-road highway driving in 18 adult ADHD patients during treatment with methylphenidate (MPH) or placebo.

Investigators from Brazil determined if copy number variants (CNVs) in glutamate metabotropic receptor genes (GRM) were overrepresented in 1038 individuals with ADHD compared to 1057 subjects without ADHD.

Investigators at Seoul National Hospital, and other centers in Seoul, Korea, studied the genetic, perinatal, and developmental risk factors in 147 children, ages 6 to 15 years, diagnosed with ADHD.

Investigators from Meijo and Nagoya Universities, Nagoya, Japan, studied the role for thyroid stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR) in TSHR knockout mice with phenotypes of ADHD such as hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and impairment of short-term memory.

Investigators from Okazaki City Hospital, and other centers in Japan retrospectively evaluated the clinical features, ultrasonography, and EEG findings in 22 preterm infants with PVHI and 49 with PVL.

Investigators at University of Colorado conducted a prospective longitudinal cohort study of children 8 to 18 years old presenting to the ED

Investigators at the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, compared the prevalence and clinical correlates of DSM-IV-TR versus DSM-5-defined ADHD and subtypes in a nationally representative sample of US youth based on age-of-onset criterion.

Investigators at Oregon Health and Science University and other centers attempt to refine subtyping of childhood ADHD by using biologically based behavioral temperament types.

Investigators at University of Columbo, Sri Lanka, studied the efficacy of oral prednisolone (40-60 mg/day) and intramuscular adrenocorticotrophin hormone (40-60 IU synthetic ACTH every other day) for 14 days in improving hypsarrhythmia in children (age 2 mos-2 yrs) with previously untreated West syndrome.

Investigators at University of Sydney, Australia, and 14 international centers assessed the utility and safety of rituximab in 144 children (median age 8 years, range 0.7-17; 103 female) with autoimmune and inflammatory disorders of the CNS.

Investigators at Boston Children's Hospital and other centers compared the characteristics of patients with status epilepticus (SE) lasting 5-29 min with those with SE lasting >30 min.

Investigators from Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, conducted a follow-up telephone interview of patients with a history of headaches diagnosed in 1983.

Investigators at Universities of Naples and Salerno, Italy; and Maastricht University, the Netherlands, explored the functional response of vestibular neural pathways using whole-brain blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) fMRI during caloric vestibular stimulation in 12 patients (mean age 31.2 +/- 5 yrs) with vestibular migraine (VM), in 12 healthy controls, and in a group of age- and sex-matched patients with migraine without aura (MwoA).

Investigators at Boston Children's Hospital and at University of Florida, Gainesville, studied the comparative efficacy of plasmapheresis (PLEX) vs immunoglobulin (IVIG) as maintenance therapy in juvenile myasthenia gravis (MG).

Eighty percent of children with active epilepsy in Sussex Schools, UK, who underwent psychological evaluation had a DSM-IV-TR behavioral disorder and/or cognitive impairment (IQ

Investigators at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, evaluated the 2012 revised IPMSSG consensus definitions in a cohort of children with acquired demyelinating syndromes (ADS) prospectively followed for 2 years from Jan 2007.

Investigators at Toronto Western and The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, prospectively studied the motor abnormalities in a consecutive sample of adults with genetically proven Dravet syndrome (DS).

Investigators at University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, and Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, conducted a retrospective population-level study of the relationship between epilepsy and 12 common autoimmune diseases: type 1 diabetes mellitus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, Graves disease, Hashimoto thyroiditis, Crohn disease, ulcerative colitis, systemic lupus erythematosus, antiphospholipid syndrome, Sjogren syndrome, myasthenia gravis, and celiac disease.

Investigators at University of Gaziantep, Turkey, studied the frequency of celiac disease (CD) among children with occipital epilepsy.

Investigators at University of Toronto and McMaster University, Canada, report a 22-year-old woman with multiple episodes of status epilepticus and migratory cortical stroke-like lesions.