You better hope your hospital has implemented this from 6 years ago if you present there with locked-in-syndrome.
An article describing it here;
Brain Shaking Technique - strong magnetic stimulation - Offers Measure of Consciousness
A Theoretically Based Index of Consciousness Independent of Sensory Processing and Behavior
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Abstract
One challenging aspect of the clinical assessment of
brain-injured, unresponsive patients is the lack of an objective measure
of consciousness that is independent of the subject’s ability to
interact with the external environment. Theoretical considerations
suggest that consciousness depends on the brain’s ability to support
complex activity patterns that are, at once, distributed among
interacting cortical areas (integrated) and differentiated in space and
time (information-rich). We introduce and test a theory-driven index of
the level of consciousness called the perturbational complexity index
(PCI). PCI is calculated by (i) perturbing the cortex with transcranial
magnetic stimulation (TMS) to engage distributed interactions in the
brain (integration) and (ii) compressing the spatiotemporal pattern of
these electrocortical responses to measure their algorithmic complexity
(information). We test PCI on a large data set of TMS-evoked potentials
recorded in healthy subjects during wakefulness, dreaming, nonrapid eye
movement sleep, and different levels of sedation induced by anesthetic
agents (midazolam, xenon, and propofol), as well as in patients who had
emerged from coma (vegetative state, minimally conscious state, and
locked-in syndrome). PCI reliably discriminated the level of
consciousness in single individuals during wakefulness, sleep, and
anesthesia, as well as in patients who had emerged from coma and
recovered a minimal level of consciousness. PCI can potentially be used
for objective determination of the level of consciousness at the
bedside.
- Copyright © 2013, American Association for the Advancement of Science
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