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Viewing report
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Consciousness in Coma?. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, June 2009, Pages: 164
Are coma patients still able of cognition and emotion
and to what extend? Such questions can be
investigated with auditory Event-Related Potentials
(ERPs) and Skin Conductance Response (SCR). Cognitive
functions were tested with several paradigms in 44
coma patients and emotional response in fifteen of
them. In at least 7 % (N=44) of these patients an
explicit semantic processing and thus a minimal
remaining consciousness could not be excluded. This
study is the first to demonstrate semantic processing
in coma. We found a correlation between emotional SCR
and level of consciousness as measured by the GCS and
the Cook and Palma scores in agreement with the weak
emotional SCR observed in these patients. Some ERPs,
when observed in coma have also a prognosis value. We
conducted a meta-analysis on 337 to 612 patients
showing that the N100, the Mismatch Negativity, and
the P300 predict awakening from coma. This work
provides new insights on the coma state and suggests
new methods of assessment of these patients for
medical practitioners.
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