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BackgroundDisorders of consciousness (DOC), i.e., unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) or vegetative state (VS) and minimally conscious state (MCS), are conditions that can arise from severe brain injury, inducing widespread functional changes. Given the damaging implications resulting from these conditions, there is an increasing need for rehabilitation treatments aimed at enhancing the level of consciousness, the quality of life, and creating new recovery perspectives for the patients. Music may represent an additional rehabilitative tool in contexts where cognition and language are severely compromised, such as among DOC patients. A further type of rehabilitation strategies for DOC patients consists of Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation techniques (NIBS), including transcranial electrical stimulation (tES), affecting neural excitability and promoting brain plasticity.ObjectiveWe here propose a novel rehabilitation protocol for DOC patients that combines music-based intervention and NIBS in neurological patients. The main objectives are (i) to assess the residual neuroplastic processes in DOC patients exposed to music, (ii) to determine the putative neural modulation and the clinical outcome in DOC patients of non-pharmacological strategies, i.e., tES(control condition), and music stimulation, and (iii) to evaluate the putative positive impact of this intervention on caregiver's burden and psychological distress.MethodsThis is a randomised cross-over trial in which a total of 30 participants will be randomly allocated to one of three different combinations of conditions: (i) Music only, (ii) tES only (control condition), (iii) Music + tES. The music intervention will consist of listening to an individually tailored playlist including familiar and self-relevant music together with fixed songs; concerning NIBS, tES will be applied for 20 minutes every day, 5 times a week, for two weeks. After these stimulations two weeks of placebo treatments will follow, with sham stimulation combined with noise for other two weeks. The primary outcomes will be clinical, i.e., based on the differences in the scores obtained on the neuropsychological tests, such as Coma Recovery Scale-Revised, and neurophysiological measures as EEG, collected pre-intervention, post-intervention and post-placebo.DiscussionThis study proposes a novel rehabilitation protocol for patients with DOC including a combined intervention of music and NIBS. Considering the need for rigorous longitudinal randomised controlled trials for people with severe brain injury disease, the results of this study will be highly informative for highlighting and implementing the putative beneficial role of music and NIBS in rehabilitation treatments.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT05706831, registered on January 30, 2023.

O presente trabalho consiste em um estudo que tem como objetivo geral promover análise acerca de uma das maiores ameaças às democracias modernas: a disseminação de desinformação na Era Digital, sendo o foco voltado ao contexto do pleito eleitoral brasileiro. A discussão tratada aqui tem como objetivos específicos: identificar as irregularidades legalmente previstas na veiculação de propaganda eleitoral, além do papel das instituições públicas, privadas e da sociedade civil no combate a notícias falsas. Ademais, se busca conhecer quais os impactos da educação digital frente ao constitucionalismo abusivo, interpretando-se a adequação da participação eleitoral a partir de preceitos constitucionais essenciais, especialmente os da liberdade de expressão e da isonomia. Quanto à metodologia, adotou-se a pesquisa bibliográfica, uma vez que o estudo foi realizado e embasado a partir do levantamento de referências teóricas já publicadas em veículos diversos; documental, através da análise de dispositivos legais, em especial da Constituição Federal de 1988 e da legislação eleitoral; e exploratória, por observar o fenômeno a partir da cultura político-jurídica nacional, fazendo breve comparação com sistemas de outros países. As conclusões apresentadas demonstram que a disseminação de fake news é amplamente difundida nas sociedades contemporâneas e que a participação civil-insitucional tem impacto essencial no combate desse fenômeno.O trabalho é original e se dirige com enfoque específico ao campo de atuação do direito e da justiça eleitoral. De forma geral, alcança todas as sociedades que prezam pela proteção democrática.