Multimodal assessment of recovery from coma in a rat model of diffuse brainstem tegmentum injury.

ABSTRACT: Despite the association between brainstem lesions and coma, a mechanistic understanding of coma pathogenesis and recovery is lacking. We developed a coma model in the rat mimicking human brainstem coma, which allowed multimodal analysis of a brainstem tegmentum lesion's effects on behavior, cortical electrophysiology, and global brain functional connectivity. After coma induction, we observed a transient period (∼1h) of unresponsiveness accompanied by cortical burst-suppression. Comatose rats then gradually regained behavioral responsiveness concurrent with emergence of delta/theta-predominant cortical rhythms in primary somatosensory cortex. During the acute stage of coma recovery (∼1-8h), longitudinal resting-state functional MRI revealed an increase in functional connectivity between su

SUBMITTER: Pais-Roldan P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6642798 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature