Twenty-two nuclear families with benign epilepsy of childhood with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS, rolandic epilepsy) were analyzed by DNA linkage studies at the Department of Neuropediatrics, University of Kiel, Germany. Screening of all chromosomal regions known to harbor neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (AChR) subunit genes found evidence for linkage of BECTS to chromosome 15ql4, similar to that involved in families with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy. An autosomal recessive mode of inheritance with heterogeneity was suggested. [1]

COMMENT. Both benign rolandic epilepsy, a common partial, idiopathic epilepsy syndrome, and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy, a generalized idiopathic syndrome, have been linked genetically to chromosome 15ql4.