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Disorders of Consciousness: What Do We Know?

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Characterizing Consciousness: From Cognition to the Clinic?

Part of the book series: Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences ((NEUROSCIENCE))

Abstract

Improving the diagnosis of altered states of consciousness is of ethical and medical interest. The alarming rate of misdiagnosis shows how difficult it is to disentangle disorders of consciousness. This review shows that the integration of objective methods such as neuroimaging techniques should improve our diagnoses and guide our clinical therapeutic options in these challenging patients. Additionally, just as resting metabolism and passive paradigms studies increased our understanding of residual cerebral processing in vegetative and minimally conscious patients, an active paradigm seems to be another powerful objective diagnostic tool to distinguish between these patients.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS), European Commission, James McDonnell Foundation, Mind Science Foundation, French Speaking Community Concerted Research Action (ARC-06/11-340), Fondation Médicale Reine Elisabeth, University of Liège and the CNRS/FNRS-CGRI collaboration funds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coma Science Group, Cyclotron Research Centre, University of Liege, Sart Tilman, B30, 4000, Liège, Belgium

    Caroline Schnakers

Authors
  1. Camille Chatelle
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  2. Steven Laureys
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  3. Caroline Schnakers
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Caroline Schnakers .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Unité INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91191, France

    Stanislas Dehaene

  2. Fondation Ipsen, Quai Georges Gorse 65, Boulogne-Billancourt, 92100, France

    Yves Christen

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Chatelle, C., Laureys, S., Schnakers, C. (2011). Disorders of Consciousness: What Do We Know?. In: Dehaene, S., Christen, Y. (eds) Characterizing Consciousness: From Cognition to the Clinic?. Research and Perspectives in Neurosciences. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-18015-6_5

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