Clinical Description
The clinical spectrum of GRIN2A-related disorders is broad and includes developmental delay / intellectual disability (DD/ID), epilepsy, speech and language disorders, movement disorders, and neuropsychiatric disorders. Cognitive function can be normal or show mild-to-profound impairment. The spectrum of epilepsy phenotypes ranges from self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (SeLECTS) to developmental and/or epileptic encephalopathies (DEE/EE) with spike-wave activation in sleep (DEE/EE-SWAS) – including Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS) – to infantile-onset DEE. Speech and language disorders range from mild speech impairment to aphasia to nonverbal phenotypes. Movement disorders occur less frequently and include ataxia, dystonia, and chorea. GRIN2A-related disorders also carry an increased risk for early-onset neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and schizophrenia as well as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
To date, about 400 individuals have been identified with a pathogenic variant in GRIN2A [Lemke et al 2013, Lesca et al 2013, Carvill et al 2013, Strehlow et al 2019] (see also grin-portal.broadinstitute.org). The following description of the phenotypic features associated with this condition is based on reports of these individuals.
Table 2.
Select Features of GRIN2A-Related Disorders
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Feature | % of Persons w/Feature 1 |
---|
Developmental delay /
intellectual disability
| Any severity | 63% (111/177) |
Mild | 45% (33/74) |
Moderate | 23% (17/74) |
Severe | 11% (8/74) |
Profound | 22% (16/74) |
Epilepsy
| Any type | 88% (192/219) |
Focal | 83% (121/146) |
Generalized | 14% (21/146) |
Epileptic spasms | 3% (4/146) |
Speech & language disorders
| Any type/severity | 92% (129/140) |
Moderate 2 | 48% (55/115) |
Nonverbal | 16% (18/115) |
Speech delays | 23% (26/115) |
Temporary speech regression / acquired aphasia | 14% (16/115) |
Movement disorders 3
| 26% (19/72) |
Neurobehavioral/psychiatric manifestations
| 24% (17/70) |
Muscular hypotonia
| 29% (40/139) |
Brain MRI abnormalities 4
| 14% (12/85) |
- 1.
- 2.
Moderate speech and language impairment includes dysarthria, speech dyspraxia, dysphasia, speech regression with residual impairments, sometimes with additional impairments such as impaired pitch, hypernasality, or imprecise articulation [Turner et al 2015].
- 3.
Movement disorders include ataxia, dystonia, chorea, and complex movement disorders.
- 4.
Several brain abnormalities have been reported including focal cortical dysplasia, dysplastic corpus callosum, hypoplasia of corpus callosum with midline lipoma, hippocampal hyperintensity, hippocampal sclerosis, heterotopia, subcortical lesion, hypoplastic olfactory bulb, cerebellar glioma, enlarged Virchow-Robin spaces, and delayed myelination; 11% of individuals (9/85) also had generalized cortical atrophy.
Developmental delay (DD) and intellectual disability (ID) is observed in 63% (111/177) of affected individuals and ranges from mild to profound. Intellect of the 37% (66/177) of individuals without ID ranges from normal to learning disabled [Strehlow et al 2019].
Epilepsy occurs in approximately 90% of individuals [Strehlow et al 2019].
Seizure onset depends on the type of underlying GRIN2A variant [Camp et al 2023] (see Genotype-Phenotype Correlation). The most common seizure type is focal seizures (121/146, 83%), which frequently evolve to bilateral tonic-clonic seizures.
The predominant seizure type(s) in a given individual depends on the epilepsy syndrome. Broadly, GRIN2A-related disorders fall into the epilepsy-aphasia syndromes group, which includes DEE/EE-SWAS, of which Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS) is a subtype [Carvill et al 2013, Lesca et al 2013]. Related self-limited focal epilepsies such as SeLECTS and related disorders are also included, as well as unclassified phenotypes [Carvill et al 2013, Lemke et al 2013, Lesca et al 2013].
Specific epilepsy syndromes associated with GRIN2A pathogenic variants include:
DEE/EE-SWAS with focal seizures, which may be drug-resistant. The electroencephalogram (EEG) shows marked activation in non-REM sleep of bilateral slow spike-and-wave discharges [
Specchio et al 2022].
In LKS, a subtype of DEE/EE-SWAS, 30% of individuals do not have seizures.
Self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (SeLECTS) with onset in childhood (usually age 3-6 years) with EEG showing centrotemporal discharges [
Specchio et al 2022].
Infantile-onset DEE, with severe-to-profound impairment and sometimes epileptic spasms
EEG most commonly shows focal discharges (86/152; 57%), with centrotemporal spikes (34/152; 22%) or multifocal discharges (28/152; 18%). One third of individuals had SWAS (51/152; 34%). SWAS is defined as marked activation of bilateral slow spike-and-wave discharges in non-REM sleep (previously known as continuous spike-wave in slow-wave sleep [CSWS] or electrical status epilepticus in sleep [ESES]). Generalized discharges (6/152; 4%) or individuals with normal EEG (9/152; 6%) are rare [Strehlow et al 2019].
Speech and language
disorders are among the most common features of GRIN2A-related disorders [Turner et al 2015, Strehlow et al 2019]. Abnormalities include dysarthria, speech dyspraxia, dysphasia (55/115; 48%), and speech regression with acquired aphasia (16/115; 14%), which is typically seen in LKS.
Mildly affected individuals may display subtly impaired intelligibility of conversational speech, most characterized by dysarthric and dyspraxic features of hypernasality, imprecise consonant production, and impaired pitch and prosody [Turner et al 2015].
Neuroimaging. Brain MRI is normal in the majority of affected individuals (64/85; 75%). Severely affected individuals may show nonspecific abnormalities, such as cerebral atrophy (9/85; 11%) and a thin corpus callosum. A variety of other abnormalities have rarely been reported, including focal cortical dysplasia, dysplastic corpus callosum with delayed myelination, hypoplasia of corpus callosum with midline lipoma, hippocampal sclerosis, heterotopia, hypoplastic olfactory bulb, cerebellar glioma, enlarged Virchow-Robin spaces, and delayed myelination [Reutlinger et al 2010, Pierson et al 2014, Venkateswaran et al 2014, Yuan et al 2014, Strehlow et al 2019].
Other neurodevelopmental features
Neurobehavioral/psychiatric manifestations. Seventeen of 70 individuals (24%) had behavioral or psychiatric disorders, such as ADHD (n=6), ASD (n=6), schizophrenia, or anxiety disorders [Strehlow et al 2019, Shepard et al 2024].
Mental health disorders are relatively frequent in individuals with pathogenic null variants in GRIN2A. At least 27% of individuals develop early-onset mental health disorders including mood disorders (16%), anxiety disorders (14%), and psychotic disorders including schizophrenia (10%) and, rarely, personality disorders (4%) and eating disorders (1%) [J Lemke et al, unpublished data].
Facial features. No obvious dysmorphic features; some individuals may have nonspecific features.
Interfamilial and intrafamilial variability. Individuals who have the same pathogenic GRIN2A variant show similar severity of DD/ID, both within and across families [Strehlow et al 2019].
Prognosis. It is unknown whether life span in GRIN2A-related disorders is abnormal. The oldest known individual is 80 years old [J Lemke et al, unpublished data]. Since many adults with mild GRIN2A phenotypes have not undergone advanced genetic testing, it is likely that adults with this condition are underrecognized and underreported.
Genotype-Phenotype Correlations
Several genotype-phenotype correlations have been observed.
Pathogenic GRIN2A missense variants in transmembrane domains (TMD) and linker regions (linker) are associated with severe infantile-onset DEE, whereas missense variants in the amino terminal domain (ATD) and ligand-binding domains (LBD) are associated with speech abnormalities and/or seizures with mild to no ID. Strikingly, both phenotypic groups are significantly correlated with opposing electrophysiologic consequences of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR), even though the complex functional alterations caused by a GRIN2A variant cannot always easily be reduced to a binary description such as loss or gain of function. Pathogenic missense variants in the LBD may impede agonist binding and thus reduce channel activity, whereas a TMD or linker missense variant may affect formation of the ion channel pore, mediating a gain-of-function effect by, for example, disrupted channel inhibition [Strehlow et al 2019].
Individuals with pathogenic null variants have later mean seizure onset (age 4.5 ± 0.2 years) compared to those with pathogenic missense variants (age 3.1 ± 0.4 years), and individuals with pathogenic missense variants usually have drug-resistant seizures persisting throughout childhood and adolescence [Camp et al 2023].
Mental health disorders are relatively frequent in individuals with pathogenic null variants in GRIN2A, including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia and, rarely, personality disorders [J Lemke et al, unpublished data].