EEG Studies of Siblings of Children Showing 14 and 6 per Second Positive Spikes

Thirty-eight out of 544 healthy children between 0 and 15 years of age showed 14 and 6 per second positive spikes in sleep records.Seventeen of 32 siblings of children with positive spikes showed the same phenomenon. After correction for age, the figures for positive spikes were 53.1% in the siblings against 9.4 in the controls. Thus the spike phenomenon was significantly over-represented among the siblings of the children with spikes. Fourteen parents of the children with spikes were examined, but none showed the phenomenon. No sex difference was observed.