The role of etiology in the identification of clinical markers of consciousness: comparing EEG alpha power, complexity, and spectral exponent.

ABSTRACT: In the search for EEG markers of human consciousness, alpha power has long been considered a reliable marker which is fundamental for the assessment of unresponsive patients from all etiologies. However, recent evidence questioned the role of alpha power as a marker of consciousness and proposed the spectral exponent and spatial gradient as more robust and generalizable clinical indexes. In this study, we analyzed a large-scale dataset of 303 unresponsive patients and investigated etiology-specific differences in clinical markers of level of consciousness, responsiveness and capacity to recover. We compare a set of candidate EEG makers: i) absolute, relative and flattened alpha power; ii) spatial ratios; iii) the spectral exponent; and iv) signal complexity. Our results support the claim t

SUBMITTER: Maschke C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12448740 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature