%0 Journal Article
%T Suppl-1, M6: Long-Term (Six Years) Clinical Outcome Discrimination of Patients in the Vegetative State Could be Achieved Based on the Operational Architectonics EEG Analysis: A Pilot Feasibility Study
%A Alexander A. Fingelkurts
%A Andrew A. Fingelkurts
%A Cristina Boccagni
%A Giuseppe Galardi
%A Sergio Bagnato
%J Archive of "The Open Neuroimaging Journal".
%D 2016
%R 10.2174/1874440001610010069
%X Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are increasingly used to evaluate patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) or assess their prognosis outcome in the short-term perspective. However, there is a lack of information concerning the effectiveness of EEG in classifying long-term (many years) outcome in chronic DOC patients. Here we tested whether EEG operational architectonics parameters (geared towards consciousness phenomenon detection rather than neurophysiological processes) could be useful for distinguishing a very long-term (6 years) clinical outcome of DOC patients whose EEGs were registered within 3 months post-injury. The obtained results suggest that EEG recorded at third month after sustaining brain damage, may contain useful information on the long-term outcome of patients in vegetative state: it could discriminate patients who remain in a persistent vegetative state from patients who reach a minimally conscious state or even recover a full consciousness in a long-term perspective (6 years) post-injury. These findings, if confirmed in further studies, may be pivotal for long-term planning of clinical care, rehabilitative programs, medical-legal decisions concerning the patients, and policy makers
%K Brain operations
%K consciousness
%K EEG-a and b-rhythms
%K functional connectivity
%K minimally conscious state (MCS)
%K neuronal assemblies
%K operational synchrony
%K synchronization
%K unconsciousness
%K vegetative state (VS)
%U https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4894941/