TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lugo, Zulay R.
A1  - Quitadamo, Lucia R.
A1  - Bianchi, Luigi
A1  - Pellas, Fréderic
A1  - Veser, Sandra
A1  - Lesenfants, Damien
A1  - Real, Ruben G. L.
A1  - Herbert, Cornelia
A1  - Guger, Christoph
A1  - Kotchoubey, Boris
A1  - Mattia, Donatella
A1  - Kübler, Andrea
A1  - Laureys, Steven
A1  - Noirhomme, Quentin
T1  - Cognitive Processing in Non-Communicative Patients: What Can Event-Related Potentials Tell Us?
JF  - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
N2  - Event-related potentials (ERP) have been proposed to improve the differential diagnosis of non-responsive patients. We investigated the potential of the P300 as a reliable marker of conscious processing in patients with locked-in syndrome (LIS). Eleven chronic LIS patients and 10 healthy subjects (HS) listened to a complex-tone auditory oddball paradigm, first in a passive condition (listen to the sounds) and then in an active condition (counting the deviant tones). Seven out of nine HS displayed a P300 waveform in the passive condition and all in the active condition. HS showed statistically significant changes in peak and area amplitude between conditions. Three out of seven LIS patients showed the P3 waveform in the passive condition and five of seven in the active condition. No changes in peak amplitude and only a significant difference at one electrode in area amplitude were observed in this group between conditions. We conclude that, in spite of keeping full consciousness and intact or nearly intact cortical functions, compared to HS, LIS patients present less reliable results when testing with ERP, specifically in the passive condition. We thus strongly recommend applying ERP paradigms in an active condition when evaluating consciousness in non-responsive patients.
KW  - P300
KW  - event-related potentials
KW  - locked-in syndrome
KW  - vegetative state
KW  - unresponsive wakefulness syndrome
KW  - minimally conscious state
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-165165
VL  - 10
IS  - 569
ER  -