Authors: Thibaut A, Piarulli A, Martens G, Chatelle C, Laureys S. – BACKGROUND: Spasticity management in severely brain-injured patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) is a major challenge because it leads to complications and severe pain that can seriously affect quality of life. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to determine the feasibility of using transcranial direct current […]

Authors: Leandro R. D. Sanz, Nicolas Lejeune, Séverine Blandiaux, Estelle Bonin, Aurore Thibaut, Johan Stender, Neal M. Farber, Ross D. Zafonte, Nicholas D. Schiff, Steven Laureys, and Olivia Gosseries – Background: There are few available therapeutic options to promote recovery among patients with chronic disorders of consciousness (DOC). Among pharmacological treatments, apomorphine, a dopamine agonist, […]

Authors: Martens G, Fregni F, Carrière M, Barra A, Laureys S, Thibaut A. – Primary Objective: Patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC) face a lack of treatments and risk ofmisdiagnosis, potentially due to motor impairment. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)showed promising results over the prefrontal cortex in DOC and over the primary motor cortex (M1)in […]

Authors: Charlotte Martial,corresponding author, Armand Mensen, Vanessa Charland-Verville, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Daniel Rentmeister, Mohamed Ali Bahri, Héléna Cassol, Jérôme Englebert, Olivia Gosseries, Steven Laureys, and Marie-Elisabeth Faymonville – The neurobiological basis of near-death experiences (NDEs) is unknown, but a few studies attempted to investigate it by reproducing in laboratory settings phenomenological experiences that seem to closely […]

Authors: Riganello F, Chatelle C, Schnakers C, Laureys S. – Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) has been proposed as an indicator of nociceptive pain processing1 although its reliability as pain indicator remains under debate. The objective was to study the interest of an HRV complexity analysis2 method as an indicator of nociceptive pain processing in […]

Authors: Charlotte Martial, Héléna Cassol, Steven Laureys and Olivia Gosseries – Scientific investigation of NDEs has accelerated in part because of the improvement of resuscitation techniques over the past decades, and because these memories have been more openly reported. This has allowed progress in the understanding of NDEs, but there has been little conceptual analysis […]

Authors: Martial C, Cassol H, Charland-Verville V, Pallavicini C, Sanz C, Zamberlan F, Vivot RM, Erowid F, Erowid E, Laureys S, Greyson B, Tagliazucchi E – The real or perceived proximity to death often results in a non-ordinary state of consciousness characterized by phenomenological features such as the perception of leaving the body boundaries, feelings […]

Authors: Francesco Riganello, Stephen Karl Larroque, Carol Di Perri, Valeria Prada, Walter G. Sannita and Steven Laureys – Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated functional interactions between autonomic (ANS) and brain (CNS) structures involved in higher brain functions, including attention and conscious processes. These interactions have been described by the Central Autonomic Network (CAN), a concept model […]

Authors: A. Demertzi, E. Tagliazucchi, S. Dehaene, G. Deco, P. Barttfeld, F. Raimondo,0, C. Martial, D. Fernández-Espejo, B. Rohaut, H. U. Voss, N. D. Schiff, A. M. Owen, S. Laureys, L. Naccache, and J. D. Sitt, – Adopting the framework of brain dynamics as a cornerstone of human consciousness, we determined whether dynamic signal coordination […]

Authors: Vincent Bonhomme, Cécile Staquet, Javier Montupil, Aline Defresne, Murielle Kirsch, Charlotte Martial, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Camille Chatelle, Stephen Karl Larroque, Federico Raimondo, Athena Demertzi, Olivier Bodart, Steven Laureys and Olivia Gosseries. – General anesthesia reversibly alters consciousness, without shutting down the brain globally. Depending on the anesthetic agent and dose, it may produce different consciousness […]