Hidden Effects of Brain Injury Discovered
Researchers have identified brain injuries that may underlie hidden consciousness, a puzzling phenomenon in which brain-injured patients are unable to respond to simple commands, making them appear unconscious despite having some level of awareness.
“Our study(link is external and opens in a new window) suggests that patients with hidden consciousness can hear and comprehend verbal commands, but they cannot carry out those commands because of injuries in brain circuits that relay instructions from the brain to the muscles,” says study leader Jan Claassen, MD, associate professor of neurology at Columbia University (https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/brain/awad197/7236061?redirectedFrom=fulltext).
The findings could help physicians more quickly identify brain-injured patients who might have hidden consciousness and better predict which patients are likely to recover with rehabilitation.
Hidden consciousness, also known as cognitive motor dissociation (CMD), occurs in about 15% to 25% of patients with brain injuries stemming from head trauma, brain hemorrhage, or cardiac arrest.
In previous research, Claassen and colleagues found that subtle brainwaves detectable with EEG are the strongest predictor of hidden consciousness and eventual recovery for unresponsive brain-injured patients.
But the precise pathways in the brain that become disrupted in this condition were unknown.
The researchers found that all of the CMD patients had intact brain structures related to arousal and command comprehension, supporting the notion that these patients were hearing and understanding the commands but were unable to carry them out.
“We saw that all of the CMD patients had deficits in brain regions responsible for integrating comprehended motor commands with motor output, preventing CMD patients from acting on verbal commands,” says Claassen.
Hidden consciousness, also known as cognitive motor dissociation (CMD), occurs in about 15% to 25% of patients with brain injuries stemming from head trauma, brain hemorrhage, or cardiac arrest.
In previous research, Claassen and colleagues found that subtle brainwaves detectable with EEG are the strongest predictor of hidden consciousness and eventual recovery for unresponsive brain-injured patients.
But the precise pathways in the brain that become disrupted in this condition were unknown.
AR #79
Near Death Brain Illumination
