Normal Brain Response to Propofol in Advance of Recovery from Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome.

ABSTRACT: Up to 40% of individuals with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) actually might be conscious. Recent attempts to detect covert consciousness in behaviorally unresponsive patients via neurophysiological patterns are limited by the need to compare data from brain-injured patients to healthy controls. In this report, we pilot an alternative within-subject approach by using propofol to perturb the brain state of a patient diagnosed with UWS. An auditory stimulation series was presented to the patient before, during, and after exposure to propofol while high-density electroencephalograph (EEG) was recorded. Baseline analysis revealed residual markers in the continuous EEG and event-related potentials (ERPs) that have been associated with conscious processing. However, these markers were si

SUBMITTER: Blain-Moraes S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4889589 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature