Evoked potentials in rehabilitation. A review.

Rehabilitation is a multidisciplinary field of growing interest. Evoked and event-related potentials could be useful prognostic, longitudinal monitoring and cortical remodeling tools. In spite of these many possible applications, the literature contains relatively few articles dealing with the use of these potentials in rehabilitation. This review outlines the main achievements that have, however, been recorded. In relation to prognosis, there is general consensus among authors as regards the strongest indicators of poor and good outcome: respectively, the stable absence of somatosensory evoked potentials bilaterally in hypoxic-ischemic coma, and a return of mismatch negativity. Event-related potentials, which are related to cognition, are considered more suitable for prognostic purposes. In longitudinal monitoring, event-related potentials show that recovery processes are not linear and that they can even outlast functional recovery. Electrical correlates of language open up new fields for research in rehabilitation. Finally, several observations indicate that "training" of evoked and event-related potentials is possible, an approach that could increase the viability of cortical remodeling.