Detecting Consciousness with a Brain-computer Interface

in Pons, J. L.; Torricelli, D.; Pajaro, M. (Eds.) Converging Clinical and Engineering Research on Neurorehabilitation (2012, November)

Recent electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies showed command-specific changes in EEG or fMRI signals of unresponsive patients providing motor-independent evidence of conscious thoughts. These ... [more ▼]

Recent electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies showed command-specific changes in EEG or fMRI signals of unresponsive patients providing motor-independent evidence of conscious thoughts. These promising results have paved the way for a new application for Brain-computer Interface (BCI): detecting consciousness in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC). In the present abstract, we review the first results obtained by BCI-like applications in patients with DOC and discuss the challenges facing BCI research. We believe that patients with DOC may benefit from BCI based diagnosis. BCIs may detect changes in the signal in response to command and, in some cases, may permit communication. [less ▲]

Electrophysiological investigations of brain function in coma, vegetative and minimally conscious patients.

in Archives Italiennes de Biologie (2012), 150(2-3), 122-39

Electroencephalographic activity in the context of disorders of consciousness is a swiss knife like tool that can evaluate different aspects of cognitive residual function, detect consciousness and ... [more ▼]

Electroencephalographic activity in the context of disorders of consciousness is a swiss knife like tool that can evaluate different aspects of cognitive residual function, detect consciousness and provide a mean to communicate with the outside world without using muscular channels. Standard recordings in the neurological department offer a first global view of the electrogenesis of a patient and can spot abnormal epileptiform activity and therefore guide treatment. Although visual patterns have a prognosis value, they are not sufficient to provide a diagnosis between vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS) and minimally conscious state (MCS) patients. Quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) processes the data and retrieves features, not visible on the raw traces, which can then be classified. Current results using qEEG show that MCS can be differentiated from VS/UWS patients at the group level. Event Related Potentials (ERP) are triggered by varying stimuli and reflect the time course of information processing related to the stimuli from low-level peripheral receptive structures to high-order associative cortices. It is hence possible to assess auditory, visual, or emotive pathways. Different stimuli elicit positive or negative components with different time signatures. The presence of these components when observed in passive paradigms is usually a sign of good prognosis but it cannot differentiate VS/UWS and MCS patients. Recently, researchers have developed active paradigms showing that the amplitude of the component is modulated when the subject's attention is focused on a task during stimulus presentation. Hence significant differences between ERPs of a patient in a passive compared to an active paradigm can be a proof of consciousness. An EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI) can then be tested to provide the patient with a communication tool. BCIs have considerably improved the past two decades. However they are not easily adaptable to comatose patients as they can have visual or auditory impairments or different lesions affecting their EEG signal. Future progress will require large databases of resting state-EEG and ERPs experiment of patients of different etiologies. This will allow the identification of specific patterns related to the diagnostic of consciousness. Standardized procedures in the use of BCIs will also be needed to find the most suited technique for each individual patient. [less ▲]

Metabolic activity in external and internal awareness networks in severely brain-damaged patients.

in Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine (2012), 44(6), 487-94

OBJECTIVE: An extrinsic cerebral network (encompassing lateral frontoparietal cortices) related to external/sensory awareness and an intrinsic midline network related to internal/self-awareness have been ... [more ▼]

OBJECTIVE: An extrinsic cerebral network (encompassing lateral frontoparietal cortices) related to external/sensory awareness and an intrinsic midline network related to internal/self-awareness have been identified recently. This study measured brain metabolism in both networks in patients with severe brain damage. DESIGN: Prospective [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography and Coma Recovery Scale-Revised assessments in a university hospital setting. SUBJECTS: Healthy volunteers and patients in vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS), minimally conscious state (MCS), emergence from MCS (EMCS), and locked-in syndrome (LIS). RESULTS: A total of 70 patients were included in the study: 24 VS/UWS, 28 MCS, 10 EMCS, 8 LIS and 39 age-matched controls. VS/UWS showed metabolic dysfunction in extrinsic and intrinsic networks and thalami. MCS showed dysfunction mostly in intrinsic network and thalami. EMCS showed impairment in posterior cingulate/retrosplenial cortices. LIS showed dysfunction only in infratentorial regions. Coma Recovery Scale-Revised total scores correlated with metabolic activity in both extrinsic and part of the intrinsic network and thalami. CONCLUSION: Progressive recovery of extrinsic and intrinsic awareness network activity was observed in severely brain-damaged patients, ranging from VS/UWS, MCS, EMCS to LIS. The predominance of intrinsic network impairment in MCS could reflect altered internal/self-awareness in these patients, which is difficult to quantify at the bedside. [less ▲]

Functional imaging and impaired consciousness

in Schnakers, Caroline; Laureys, Steven (Eds.) Coma and disorders of consciousness (2012)

La neuro-imagerie: un outil diagnostique des etats de conscience alteree.

in Medecine Sciences : M/S (2011), 27(1), 77-81

Vegetative and minimally conscious states diagnosis remained a major clinical challenge. New paradigms such as measurement of the global cerebral metabolism, the structural and functional integrity of ... [more ▼]

Vegetative and minimally conscious states diagnosis remained a major clinical challenge. New paradigms such as measurement of the global cerebral metabolism, the structural and functional integrity of fronto-parietal network, or the spontaneous activity in resting state have been shown to be helpful to disentangle vegetative from minimally conscious patients. Active neuroimagery paradigms also allow detecting voluntary and conscious activity in non-communicative patients. The implementation of these methods in clinical routine could permit to reduce the current high rate of misdiagnosis (40%). [less ▲]

Brain-computer interface in disorders of consciousness: answering simple questions with a P3 speller

Poster (2010, June)

Objective: In the recovery from coma, the acquisition of command following represents an important milestone, indicating emergence from the vegetative state (Schnakers et al., 2009). In some patients ... [more ▼]

Objective: In the recovery from coma, the acquisition of command following represents an important milestone, indicating emergence from the vegetative state (Schnakers et al., 2009). In some patients, recovery of consciousness may precede motor recovery. Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) might permit these patients to show non-motor dependent signs of awareness and in a next step might enable communication. This study aimed at testing to what extent an EEG-based BCI could help detecting signs of awareness and communication in disorders of consciousness. We employed a P300 based BCI where healthy volunteers and patients with locked-in syndrome and in a minimally conscious state were asked to answer yes or no to simple questions by paying attention to one out of four auditorily presented stimuli (‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘stop’, ‘go’). Methods: We studied 13 patients with a minimally conscious state (MCS, 5 TBI – 8 anoxic, mean time post injury 70±109 months; mean age 42 ± 21) and 2 in pseudo-coma or locked in syndrome (LIS; brainstem stroke, time post injury 26 and 46 months; aged 63 and 29)) and 16 healthy controls (aged 45±19). Patients were evaluated using the Coma Recovery Scale Revised (CRS-R). An auditory P300 four choice speller paradigm (Furdea et al., 2009) based on the BCI2000 system (Schalk et al., 2004) was used. 16-Channel EEG was recorded using a g.tec USBAmp amplifier. A trial constituted of 15 presentation of four sounds the order of presentation being pseudo-randomized (sound duration: ~400ms; inter-stimulus interval: ~600ms). After a training session of 4 trials, patients and healthy subjects were required to answer 10 or 12 questions, respectively. Questions were of the following kind: “Is your name Quentin?”, “Is your mother’s name Dorothée?”. A stepwise linear discriminant analysis based on the training session was used to classify the data and to provide online feedback. Offline, all training and testing sequences were pooled. Sequences with artifacts were discarded and a leave-one-out approach was used to classify the data. Results: Healthy subjects presented a mean correct response rate of 73% online and 93% offline. Note that online classification failed for one control subject due to a presumed change in cognitive strategy between training and testing sessions. LIS patients showed a correct response rate of 30 and 60% (online) and 36 and 79% (offline). Three MCS patients had a correct response rate of ≥50% offline (10, 18, 0% online and 50, 53, 57% offline). Two of these three patients did not show any command following at the bedside. The 10 remaining MCS cases showed online and offline correct answers <50% (mean 33±9% online and 25±13% offline). Conclusion: Our auditory P300-based BCI permitted functional interactive communication in 15/16 controls (online) and in all offline. Our data obtained in patients with locked-in syndrome and disorders of consciousness demonstrate the potential clinical usefulness of the technique following coma but also show lower accuracy in patients as compared to healthy volunteers. This might be due to fluctuating attentional levels and exhaustibility in the MCS and to the suboptimal EEG recording quality due to movement, ocular and respiration artifacts in these challenging patients. Further algorithmic developments should include automatic artifact detection and single trial classification. Despite the need for further improvement in BCI devices adapted to post-coma patients, our results already indicate that MCS patients without any clinical sign of command-following can employ a yes-no speller offering the hope of functional interactive communication and a possibility for decision making and autonomy. Bibliography Furdea A, Halder S, Krusienski DJ, Bross D, Nijboer F, Birbaumer N, Kübler A, 2009, An auditory oddball (P300) spelling system for brain-computer interfaces, Psychophysiology. May; 46(3):617-25. Schalk G., McFarland D.J., Hinterberger T., Birbaumer N., and Wolpaw J.R. 2004, BCI2000: A General-Purpose Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) System, IEEE Trans Biomed Eng, 51(6). Schnakers C, Vanhaudenhuyse A, Giacino J, Ventura; Boly M, Majerus S, Moonen G, Laureys S, 2009, Diagnostic accuracy of the vegetative and minimally conscious state: Clinical consensus versus standardized neurobehavioral assessment, BMC Neurology, 9 (35). [less ▲]

Disorders of consciousness: Moving from passive to resting state and active paradigms

in Cognitive Neuroscience (2010), 1(1), 193203

Following coma, some patients will recover wakefulness without signs of consciousness (i.e., vegetative state) or may show nonreflexive movements but with no ability for functional communication (i.e ... [more ▼]

Following coma, some patients will recover wakefulness without signs of consciousness (i.e., vegetative state) or may show nonreflexive movements but with no ability for functional communication (i.e., minimally conscious state). Currently, there remains a high rate of misdiagnosis of the vegetative state. The increasing use of fMRI and EEG tools permits the clinical characterization of these patients to be improved. We first discuss “resting metabolism” and “passive activation” paradigms, used in neuroimaging and evoked potential studies, which merely identify neural activation reflecting “automatic” processing—that is, occurring without the patient’s willful intervention. Secondly, we present an alternative approach consisting of instructing subjects to imagine well-defined sensorymotor or cognitive-mental actions. This strategy reflects volitional neural activation and, hence, witnesses awareness. Finally, we present results on blood-oxgen-level-dependent “default mode network”/resting state studies that might be a promising tool in the diagnosis of these challenging patients. [less ▲]

La Sensory Modality Assessment and Rehabilitation Technique (SMART) : une echelle comportementale d'evaluation et de revalidation pour des etats alteres de conscience.

in Revue Neurologique (2010), 166(8-9), 675-82

INTRODUCTION: Difficulties in detecting bedside signs of consciousness in non-communicative patients still lead to a high rate of misdiagnosis illustrating the need to employ standardized behavioral ... [more ▼]

INTRODUCTION: Difficulties in detecting bedside signs of consciousness in non-communicative patients still lead to a high rate of misdiagnosis illustrating the need to employ standardized behavioral assessment scales. STATE OF ART: The Sensory Modality Assessment and Rehabilitation Technique (SMART) is a behavioral assessment scale of consciousness that assesses responses to multimodal sensory stimulation in disorders of consciousness. These stimulations can also be considered to have therapeutic value. PERSPECTIVES: We here review the different components and use of the SMART assessment and discuss its validity, reliability, and robustness in clinical practice. The scale has a high intra- and inter-observer reliability thanks to a detailed procedure description. However, in the absence of objective gold standards in the assessment of consciousness, it is currently difficult to make strong claims about its validity. A comparison between SMART and other standardized and validated coma-scales is proposed. CONCLUSION: In our view, SMART is an interesting tool for monitoring patients with altered states of consciousness subsequent to coma. Currently, we await studies on its concurrent validity as compared to other validated behavioral assessment scales and on the effect of SMART stimulations on patient outcome. [less ▲]

État végétatif et état de conscience minimale : un devenir pire que la mort ?

Part of book (2010)

The nociception coma scale: A new tool to assess nociception in disorders of consciousness.

in Pain (2010), 148

Assessing behavioral responses to nociception is difficult in severely brain-injured patients recovering from coma. We here propose a new scale developed for assessing nociception in vegetative (VS) and ... [more ▼]

Assessing behavioral responses to nociception is difficult in severely brain-injured patients recovering from coma. We here propose a new scale developed for assessing nociception in vegetative (VS) and minimally conscious (MCS) coma survivors, the Nociception Coma Scale (NCS), and explore its concurrent validity, inter-rater agreement and sensitivity. Concurrent validity was assessed by analyzing behavioral responses of 48 post-comatose patients to a noxious stimulation (pressure applied to the fingernail) (28 VS and 20 MCS; age range 20-82years; 17 of traumatic etiology). Patients' were assessed using the NCS and four other scales employed in non-communicative patients: the 'Neonatal Infant Pain Scale' (NIPS) and the 'Faces, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability' (FLACC) used in newborns; and the 'Pain Assessment In Advanced Dementia Scale' (PAINAD) and the 'Checklist of Non-verbal Pain Indicators' (CNPI) used in dementia. For the establishment of inter-rater agreement, fifteen patients were concurrently assessed by two examiners. Concurrent validity, assessed by Spearman rank order correlations between the NCS and the four other validated scales, was good. Cohen's kappa analyses revealed a good to excellent inter-rater agreement for the NCS total and subscore measures, indicating that the scale yields reproducible findings across examiners. Finally, a significant difference between NCS total scores was observed as a function of diagnosis (i.e., VS or MCS). The NCS constitutes a sensitive clinical tool for assessing nociception in severely brain-injured patients. This scale constitutes the first step to a better management of patients recovering from coma. [less ▲]