The objective of this study was to determine the integrity of the homoeostatic coupling relationship between neuronal electrical function and cerebral metabolism in the vegetative and minimally conscious states. Ten patients who met recognised diagnostic criteria (six in the vegetative state and four minimally conscious) were investigated using simultaneous electroencephalography and positron e...

OBJECTIVES To establish the prevalence of vegetative state in Dutch nursing homes, describe the patient characteristics, and highlight the possible influence of medical decisions at the end of life. DESIGN A cross-sectional survey. The vegetative state was defined according to the Multi Society Task Force on PVS. All Dutch nursing homes were approached to provide data on patients in a vegetat...

PURPOSE Locked-in syndrome and vegetative state are distinct outcomes from coma. Despite their differences, they are clinically difficult to distinguish at the early stage and current diagnostic tools remain insufficient. Since some brain functions are preserved in locked-in syndrome, we postulated that networks of spontaneously co-activated brain areas might be present in locked-in patients, s...

Consciousness in experimental subjects is typically inferred from reports and other forms of voluntary behaviour. A wealth of everyday experience confirms that healthy subjects do not ordinarily behave in these ways unless they are conscious. Investigation of consciousness in vegetative state (VS) patients has been based on the search for neural evidence that such broad functional capacities ar...

BACKGROUND Physicians treating patients in the vegetative state (VS) must deal with uncertainty in diagnosis and prognosis, as well as ethical issues. We examined whether physicians' attitudes toward medical and ethical challenges vary across two national medical practice settings. METHODS A comparative survey was conducted among German and Canadian specialty physicians, based on a case vigne...

OBJECTIVE To investigate functional connectivity between the default mode network (DMN) and other networks in disorders of consciousness. METHODS We analyzed MRI data from 11 patients in a vegetative state and 7 patients in a minimally conscious state along with age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects. MRI data analysis included nonlinear spatial normalization to compensate for disease-...

expressed quantitative cerebral activity is crucial. The strongest evidence that supports the concept of early recovery of awareness in Menon et al.'s patient is that she ultimately recovered consciousness. Had she never regained any additional expressed qualities of attention, recognition, or interactive behavior beyond the P300 and the PET findings after another eight months (i.e. a year afte...