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For patients who are in a vegetative state, an EEG could soon be used to scan for awareness in the brain in lieu of fMRI, new research from the University of Birmingham suggests.
fMRI scans have shown that certain patients diagnosed to be in a vegetative state are actually aware but unable to show it with their behavior, and the researchers set out to find a more accurate diagnosis.
The study included 14 patients who had varying levels of awareness and behavioral ability — seven in a vegetative state, four in a minimally conscious state, two coming out of a minimally conscious state, and one with locked-in syndrome. Also, 15 healthy volunteers participated as the control group.
Vibrating stimulators that let out five pulses per second were directed to each wrist and the upper back while the patient’s EEGs were recorded. Eighty percent of the pulses were on the upper back and 20 were on the wrist.
The researchers found that the healthy individual’s EEG showed that their attention moved to the new stimulation spot when the pulses switched from their upper back to their wrist.
The participants were also scanned with fMRI where they had to complete three different tasks: imagine playing tennis, imagine walking around a house, and count target words within a stream of distractors.
For the participants who turned their attention to the pulse on their wrist, they were also able to follow the commands during the fMRI exam, and for the patients (five out of six) who were unable to turn their attention to the pulse stimulation, there was no evidence that they followed the three tasks assigned to them.
“A bedside EEG may work as a cost-effective and portable way of improving the accuracy of diagnosis in disorders of consciousness,” said Dr. Damian Cruse from the University of Birmingham, in a statement.
“While current clinical diagnoses are accurate for many patients, recent reports estimate that as many as 15 percent of patients considered to be in a vegetative state could retain awareness that cannot be detected reliably from their behavior alone,” he said.
