1. EEG to Identify Attempted Movement in Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome
- Author
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Chiara Arcaro, Cristina Turco, Alessandra Del Felice, Marianna Cavinato, Emanuela Formaggio, Francesco Piccione, Luca Salvi, Paolo Manganotti, R. Avesani, Silvia Francesca Storti, Formaggio, Emanuela, Del Felice, Alessandra, Cavinato, Marianna, Storti, Silvia F, Arcaro, Chiara, Turco, Cristina, Salvi, Luca, Avesani, Renato, Piccione, Francesco, and Manganotti, Paolo
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,ERS/ERD ,awareness ,coherence ,disorder of consciousness ,graph analysis ,disorder of consciousne ,Brain activity and meditation ,Movement ,media_common.quotation_subject ,awarene ,Disorders of consciousness ,Electroencephalography ,Audiology ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Motor imagery ,Neuroimaging ,medicine ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Wakefulness ,media_common ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,05 social sciences ,Motor Cortex ,Brain ,Syndrome ,General Medicine ,medicine.disease ,Neurology ,Neurology (clinical) ,Consciousness ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Mental image - Abstract
Assessment of consciousness following severe brain-injury is challenging. Our hypothesis is that electroencephalography (EEG) can provide information on awareness, in terms of oscillatory activity and network task–related modifications, in people with disorders of consciousness. Similar results were obtained with neuroimaging techniques; we aim at demonstrating the use of EEG, which is low cost and routinely implemented, to the same goal. Nineteen-channel EEG was recorded in 7 persons with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) and in 10 healthy subjects during the execution of active (attempted movement) and passive motor tasks as well as 2 mental imagery tasks. Event-related synchronization/desynchronization (ERS/ERD), coherence and network parameters were calculated in delta (1-4 Hz), theta (4-8 Hz), alpha1 (8-10 Hz), alpha2 (10-12 Hz), and beta (13-30 Hz) ranges. In UWS subjects, passive movement induced a weak alpha2 ERD over contralateral sensorimotor area. During motor imagery, ERD was detected over the frontal and motor contralateral brain areas; during spatial imagery, ERS in lower alpha band over the right temporo-parietal regions was missing. In UWS, functional connectivity provided evidence of network disruption and isolation of the motor areas, which cannot dialog with adjacent network nodes, likely suggesting a diffuse structural alteration. Our findings suggest that people with a clinical diagnosis of UWS were able to modulate their brain activity when prompted to perform movement tasks and thus suggest EEG as a potential tool to support diagnosis of disorders of consciousness.
- Published
- 2020