We report a 15-year-old female with POLG-related
mitochondrial disease who developed severe multifocal
epilepsia partialis continua, unresponsive to standard anti seizure
drug treatment and
general anesthesia. Based on an earlier case report, we treated her
focal seizures that affected her right upper limb with 20-min sessions of
transcranial direct current stimulation (
tDCS) at an intensity of 2 mA on each of five consecutive days. The cathode was placed over the left primary motor cortex, the
anode over the contralateral orbitofrontal cortex. Surface electromyography (EMG) were recorded 20 min before, 20 min during, and 20 min after four of five
tDCS sessions to measure its effect on the muscle jerks. The electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded before and after
tDCS to measure the frequency of spikes. Our results showed no statistically or clinically significant reduction of
seizures or epileptiform activity using EEG and EMG, with this treatment protocol. To our knowledge, this is only the second time that adjunct
tDCS treatment of epileptic
seizures has been tried in POLG-related
mitochondrial disease. Taken together with the positive findings from the earlier case report, the present study highlights that more data are needed to determine if, and under which parameters, the treatment is effective.