Brain dead yet mind alive: A positron emission tomography case study of brain metabolism in Cotard’s syndrome
Charland-Verville, Vanessa ; Bruno, Marie-Aurélie ; Bahri, Mohamed Ali et al
in Cortex : A Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System & Behavior (2013), 49(7), 1997-1999Detailed reference viewed: 47 (10 ULg)
Unresponsive wakefulness syndrome: a new name for the vegetative state or apallic syndrome.
Laureys, Steven ; ; et al
in BMC Medicine (2010), 8
BACKGROUND: Some patients awaken from coma (that is, open the eyes) but remain unresponsive (that is, only showing reflex movements without response to command). This syndrome has been coined vegetative ... [more ▼]
BACKGROUND: Some patients awaken from coma (that is, open the eyes) but remain unresponsive (that is, only showing reflex movements without response to command). This syndrome has been coined vegetative state. We here present a new name for this challenging neurological condition: unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (abbreviated UWS). DISCUSSION: Many clinicians feel uncomfortable when referring to patients as vegetative. Indeed, to most of the lay public and media vegetative state has a pejorative connotation and seems inappropriately to refer to these patients as being vegetable-like. Some political and religious groups have hence felt the need to emphasize these vulnerable patients' rights as human beings. Moreover, since its first description over 35 years ago, an increasing number of functional neuroimaging and cognitive evoked potential studies have shown that physicians should be cautious to make strong claims about awareness in some patients without behavioral responses to command. Given these concerns regarding the negative associations intrinsic to the term vegetative state as well as the diagnostic errors and their potential effect on the treatment and care for these patients (who sometimes never recover behavioral signs of consciousness but often recover to what was recently coined a minimally conscious state) we here propose to replace the name. CONCLUSION: Since after 35 years the medical community has been unsuccessful in changing the pejorative image associated with the words vegetative state, we think it would be better to change the term itself. We here offer physicians the possibility to refer to this condition as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome or UWS. As this neutral descriptive term indicates, it refers to patients showing a number of clinical signs (hence syndrome) of unresponsiveness (that is, without response to commands) in the presence of wakefulness (that is, eye opening). [less ▲]Detailed reference viewed: 50 (5 ULg)
Dualism persists in the science of mind.
Demertzi, Athina ; ; Ledoux, Didier et al
in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (2009), 1157
The relationship between mind and brain has philosophical, scientific, and practical implications. Two separate but related surveys from the University of Edinburgh (University students, n= 250) and the ... [more ▼]
The relationship between mind and brain has philosophical, scientific, and practical implications. Two separate but related surveys from the University of Edinburgh (University students, n= 250) and the University of Liege (health-care workers, lay public, n= 1858) were performed to probe attitudes toward the mind-brain relationship and the variables that account for differences in views. Four statements were included, each relating to an aspect of the mind-brain relationship. The Edinburgh survey revealed a predominance of dualistic attitudes emphasizing the separateness of mind and brain. In the Liege survey, younger participants, women, and those with religious beliefs were more likely to agree that the mind and brain are separate, that some spiritual part of us survives death, that each of us has a soul that is separate from the body, and to deny the physicality of mind. Religious belief was found to be the best predictor for dualistic attitudes. Although the majority of health-care workers denied the distinction between consciousness and the soma, more than one-third of medical and paramedical professionals regarded mind and brain as separate entities. The findings of the study are in line with previous studies in developmental psychology and with surveys of scientists' attitudes toward the relationship between mind and brain. We suggest that the results are relevant to clinical practice, to the formulation of scientific questions about the nature of consciousness, and to the reception of scientific theories of consciousness by the general public. [less ▲]Detailed reference viewed: 66 (5 ULg)