www.frontiersin.org encountered in the vegetative state makes it utterly difficult to identify possible REM sleep other than by the presence of muscular atonia and eye movements – note that nocturnal penile erections have been convincingly shown in vegetative patients (Cologan et al., in press). The brain’s metabolic activity in a coma, as measured by fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomogr...

Widespread periarticular new-bone formation (myositis ossificans) was studied in 45 patients with brain damage who were in long-term coma. Thirty-six of these patients displayed myositis ossificans around at least one major joint. The development of myositis ossificans was shown to be independent of the sex and age of the patient and also of the aetiology, duration and outcome of the coma. Radi...

Emergency or "stat" EEGs are ordered on patients who are suspected to have serious acute brain dysfunction (ABD). Often, these patients are comatose or have some altered level of consciousness (ALOC) from stroke, brain hemorrhage, head trauma, encephalopathy, seizures, or status epilepticus--which may be convulsive (SE) or non-convulsive (NCSE). As the number of stat EEGs increases, consider al...

This case series investigates whether painful electrical stimulation increases the early prognostic value of both somatosensory-evoked potentials and functional magnetic resonance imaging in comatose patients after cardiac arrest. Three single cases with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy were considered. A neurophysiological evaluation with an electroencephalogram and somatosensory-evoked potenti...

BACKGROUND Poisoning has reported to be a major cause of death and burden of disease in low- and middle-Income countries. Rhabdomyolysis is a common consequence of many poisoning cases and serum creatine phosphokinase (CPK) is a marker for it. The aim of the study was to assess whether the admission creatine phosphokinase in comatose patients with acute poisoning is a predictive factor for the ...

Introduction After cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), following an out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) hemodynamic failure is common, due to a combination of heart failure and ischemia reperfusion injury. Comatose post-cardiac arrest patients are treated on the intensive care unit (ICU) with mild therapeutic hypothermia (33°), nowadays referred to as target temperature management (TTM) for ...