Robust discrimination between EEG responses to categories of environmental sounds in early coma.

ABSTRACT: Humans can recognize categories of environmental sounds, including vocalizations produced by humans and animals and the sounds of man-made objects. Most neuroimaging investigations of environmental sound discrimination have studied subjects while consciously perceiving and often explicitly recognizing the stimuli. Consequently, it remains unclear to what extent auditory object processing occurs independently of task demands and consciousness. Studies in animal models have shown that environmental sound discrimination at a neural level persists even in anesthetized preparations, whereas data from anesthetized humans has thus far provided null results. Here, we studied comatose patients as a model of environmental sound discrimination capacities during unconsciousness. We included 19 comatos

SUBMITTER: Cossy N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3933775 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature