Wanderings of the mind and signs of consciousness

Detecting residual consciousness in patients that are severely brain-damaged represents a major challenge from a medical and ethical point of view. It is also a difficult task given the risk of misdiagnosis which is a constant threat to medical professionals. In collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Coma Science Group of the University of Liege and University Hospital of Liege recently showed that resting state functional MRI scanning is an efficient tool for establishing the level of consciousness of brain-damaged patients who are incapable to communicate.