2023-08-17 16:15:19
There are people who after suffering a brain injury appear to be unconscious. His total immobility and other characteristics of his state seem to prove it. However, they are conscious, although they may experience some degree of daze. Some can even perfectly hear everything that happens around them.
For a long time, these people have been believed to be submerged in unconsciousness.
Only in recent years, some investigations in patients of this class have revealed that they do not respond to the typical profile of the coma state but present brain activity that reveals their true state. In some cases it has been possible to communicate with them when they learn to emit brain signals that can be interpreted as “yes” or “no”, with which they can answer questions posed to them from the outside world and make known what they feel and what they want.
This phenomenon is known as “hidden consciousness” or “cognitive motor dissociation”.
Cognitive motor dissociation is estimated to occur in between 15% and 25% of patients with brain injuries resulting from head trauma, brain hemorrhage, or cardiac arrest.
In previous research, certain subtle but detectable brain waves with electroencephalography (EEG) were found to be the most reliable predictor of hidden awareness.
However, the precise pathways that function in the brain of these patients, and those that do not, have been unknown.
The latter looks set to change from now on, thanks to a new study by a team including Jan Claassen, Eva Franzova and Qi Shen, all from Columbia University in New York City.
Through MRI scans, it is possible to detect patterns of brain damage typical of the ghostly state of hidden consciousness. (Image: Claassen lab, Columbia University Irving Medical Center. CC BY-NC-ND)
In the new study, the researchers used electroencephalography and other techniques to examine 107 patients with brain injuries. The research team was able to determine when a patient tried, but failed, to execute a given body movement command, such as “open and close your right hand.”
The analysis detected hidden consciousness in 21 of the patients.
The researchers then analyzed structural MRIs of all the patients.
Claassen and his colleagues were able to identify patterns of brain damage that unconsciously conscious patients typically have but not those who are completely unconscious.
The researchers found that all of the patients with hidden awareness had intact brain structures related to arousal and command comprehension, supporting the idea that these patients heard and understood commands but could not physically execute them.
Findings from this research could help clinicians more quickly identify brain injury patients with hidden consciousness and better predict which of these patients are likely to regain some degree of bodily mobility through appropriate rehabilitation.
The study is titled “Injury patterns associated with cognitive motor dissociation”. And it has been published in the academic journal Brain. (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
#clues #detect #intriguing #phenomenon #hidden #consciousness