A new study called Human Brain Project or HBP led by researchers at the University of Liege, Belgium, looked at new approaches that might help patients with severe brain injury, or in a coma, differentiate between two different neurological illnesses.
One of the most difficult tasks in neurology and critical care medicine is identifying the level of consciousness of a patient when they are in a coma, as an outcome of severe brain injury, a report from ThePrint specified.
The researchers involved in the HBP, a global initiative with more than 500 participants aimed at better understanding the intricate construction and function of the human brain through a cutting-edge interdisciplinary approach at the nexus of neuroscience and technology, have been examining novel approaches that may help in distinguishing between two distinct neurological diseases.
Awareness Disorders
The findings of this current research which were published in the eLife journal showed important data about the processes behind awareness disorders.
The research team from the GIGA Consciousness Research Unit, Coma Science Group, Faculty of Medicine of the University of Liege, the Belgium-based University Hospital of Liege, the Universitat Pompeu Fabra from Spain, and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, analyzed the states of functional brain networks as a marker of consciousness to potentially differentiate between patients suffering from unresponsive wakefulness syndromes or UWS and the state of minima or MCS.
A similar Al Jazeera report said that according to Rajanikant Panda, the first author of the paper and a researcher at ULiege's GIGA Consciousness and Coma Science Group, unresponsive arousal syndrome, formerly identified as the "vegetative state," is the state of a patient who awakens from a coma, that is, is opening his or her eyes but only shows reflex movements and does not react to either environment or verbal commands.
How the Brain Areas Interact with One Another
The distinction between such stages is crucial for proper diagnosis, prognosis, and rehabilitation treatment, as well as for essential quality of life, not to mention, end-of-life decisions.
On the other hand, the researchers said, patients "in a minimally conscious state," display modest evidence of awareness, like tracking movements with their eyes, or moving a finger when prompted.
According to the Coma Science Group/ULiege Faculty of Medicine's Jitka Annen, they witnessed different aspects of brain structure, as well as its association with network dynamics using state-of-the-art approaches and exhibited that such techniques were sensitive in terms of detecting clinically important relevant differences in the patient's diagnosis with the minimally conscious state and unresponsive wakefulness syndrome.
Utilizing data from functional magnetic reasoning imaging or MRI, scientists analyzed dynamic functional connectivity, the manner areas of the brain are interacting with one another, between neural populations, and their association with structural white matter connections or fMRI.
Backing the Global Neural Workspace
A similar Big Network News report said that according to FNRS researcher Aurore Thibaut, from the GIGA consciousness and Coma Science Group, patients suffering from unresponsive wakefulness syndrome experienced less activity in functional networks, lower metastability, and higher coupling of functional connectivity to the structural framework when compared to a minimally conscious condition.
The research findings back the global neural workspace theory, as well as the microcircuit hypothesis, postulating that the inability to regain consciousness is associated with a loss of connectivity between subcortical and frontoparietal brain areas and loss of a variety of functional states.
Related information about learning the brain's consciousness is shown on SciShow Psych's YouTube video below:
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