Journal
NEUROIMAGE-CLINICAL
Volume 12, Issue -, Pages 359-371Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.08.003
Keywords
Disorders of consciousness; N400; Auditory processing; Vegetative state; Minimally conscious state
Categories
Funding
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) [MFE 123754]
- Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program (CERC) [215063]
- National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)
- Medical Research Council (MRC)
- NIHR Brain Injury Healthcare Technology Cooperative (HTC)
- Medical Research Council [G0600986, G0001237, G9439390] Funding Source: researchfish
- National Institute for Health Research [NF-SI-0508-10327] Funding Source: researchfish
- MRC [G0600986, G9439390, G0001237] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Functional neuroimaging of covert perceptual and cognitive processes can inform the diagnoses and prognoses of patients with disorders of consciousness, such as the vegetative and minimally conscious states (VS; MCS). Here we report an event-related potential (ERP) paradigm for detecting a hierarchy of auditory processes in a group of healthy individuals and patients with disorders of consciousness. Simple cortical responses to sounds were observed in all 16 patients; 7/16 (44%) patients exhibited markers of the differential processing of speech and noise; and 1 patient produced evidence of the semantic processing of speech (i.e. the N400 effect). In several patients, the level of auditory processing that was evident from ERPs was higher than the abilities that were evident from behavioural assessment, indicating a greater sensitivity of ERPs in some cases. However, there were no differences in auditory processing between VS and MCS patient groups, indicating a lack of diagnostic specificity for this paradigm. Reliably detecting semantic processing by means of the N400 effect in passively listening single-subjects is a challenge. Multiple assessment methods are needed in order to fully characterise the abilities of patients with disorders of consciousness. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available