Research reportCortical activity and children's rituals, habits and other repetitive behavior: A visual P300 study

This study examines the link between children's repetitive, ritualistic, behavior and cortical brain activity. Twelve typically developing children between the ages of 6 and 12 years were administered two visual P300, oddball tasks with a 32-electrode electroencephalogram (EEG) system. One of the oddball tasks was specifically designed to reflect sensitivity to asymmetry, a phenomenon common in children and in a variety of disorders involving compulsive behavior. Parents completed the Childhood Routines Inventory. Children's repetitive, compulsive-like behaviors were strongly associated with faster processing of an asymmetrical target stimulus, even when accounting for their P300 latencies on a control task. The research punctuates the continuity between observed brain-behavior links in clinical disorders such as OCD and autism spectrum disorders, and normative variants of repetitive behavior.

►New visual P300 stimulus was created to assess sensitivity to symmetry/asymmetry. ► Children's P300s were compared to reports of their repetitive behavior. ► Repetitive behavior was significantly associated with faster processing of a deviant. ► Stimulus, measuring sensitivity to asymmetry. ► Similarities to previous research on disorders characterized by repetitive behavior are discussed.