RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Role of Neuroimaging Techniques in Establishing Diagnosis, Prognosis and Therapy in Disorders of Consciousness
Olivia Gosseries1, 2, *, Francesca Pistoia3, 4, Vanessa Charland-Verville1, Antonio Carolei3, Simona Sacco3, Steven Laureys1
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2016Volume: 10
Issue: Suppl-1, M5
First Page: 52
Last Page: 68
Publisher ID: TONIJ-10-52
DOI: 10.2174/1874440001610010052
Article History:
Received Date: 12/2/2016Revision Received Date: 6/4/2016
Acceptance Date: 11/4/2016
Electronic publication date: 13/05/2016
Collection year: 2016

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Non-communicative brain damaged patients raise important clinical and scientific issues. Here, we review three major pathological disorders of consciousness: coma, the unresponsive wakefulness syndrome and the minimally conscious state. A number of clinical studies highlight the difficulty in making a correct diagnosis in patients with disorders of consciousness based only on behavioral examinations. The increasing use of neuroimaging techniques allows improving clinical characterization of these patients. Recent neuroimaging studies using positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography and transcranial magnetic stimulation can help assess diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic treatment. These techniques, using resting state, passive and active paradigms, also highlight possible dissociations between consciousness and responsiveness, and are facilitating a more accurate understanding of brain function in this challenging population.