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A timely update to the first major reference on disorders of consciousness that includes new methodologies that have made consciousness more accessible

Table of Contents

Section 1: Basics
1. Neuroanatomical and basis of consciousness
  Hal Blumenfeld
2. Functional Neuroimaging and Electrophysiology
  Marcello Massimini and Olivia Gosseries
3. Consciousness and Synchronization
  Andreas Engel and Pascal Fries
4. Studying the Neural Correlates of Visual Consciousness
  Geraint Rees
5. Consciousness and Attention
  Naotsugu Tsuchiya and Christof Koch

Section 2: Waking, Sleep, and Anesthesia
6. Intrinsic Brain Activity and Consciousness
  Athena Demertzi
7. Sleep and Dreaming
  Francesca Siclari and Giulio Tononi
8. Focal Brain Lesions and Disturbances of Consciousness
  Claudio L. Bassetti
9. General Anesthesia
  George Mashour

Section 3: Coma and Related Conditions
10. Coma and Vegetative State
  Adrian M. Owen, Steven Laureys and Nicholas Schiff
11. Minimally Conscious State
  Caroline Schnakers and Joseph Giacino
12. Locked-in Syndrome
  Steven Laureys
13. Dementia
  Pietro Pietrini, Eric Salmon and Paul Nichelli
14. Brain Computer Interfaces
  Andrea Kübler and Donatella Mattia
15. Neuroethics
  Joseph Fins

Section 4: Seizures, Splits, Neglects, and Assorted Disorders
16. Epileptic Loss of Consciousness
  Hal Blumenfeld
17. Split Brain
  Michael Gazzaniga and Michael Miller
18. Blindsight, Agnosia, Neglect and Capgras
  Lionel Naccache
19. Conversion Disorders
  Patrik Vuilleumier
20. Out of Body and Near Death Experiences
  Olaf Blanke
21. Memory
  Bradley R. Postle
22. Transient Global Amnesia
  Chris Butler and Adam Zeman
23. Aphasia and Consciousness
  Paolo Frigio Nichelli
24. Blindness and Consciousness
  Ron Kupers and Pietro Pietrini
25. Overview
  Steven Laureys, Giulio Tononi and Olivia Gosseries

About the Author

Steven Laureys, MD PhD, is director of the Coma Science Group at the Neurology Department and Cyclotron Research Centre of the University Hospital and University of Liège, Belgium. He is research director at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research and clinical professor and board-certified in neurology and in palliative medicine. His team studies the neural basis of human consciousness (coma, anesthesia, hypnosis and sleep). He assesses the recovery of neurological disability and neuronal plasticity in acquired brain injury (e.g., comatose, “vegetative”/unresponsive, minimally conscious and locked-in syndromes) confronting clinical expertise and behavioral evaluation with multimodal neuroimaging (positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging) and electrophysiology studies (electroencephalography coupled to transcranial magnetic stimulation) and also deals with the ethical implications of this translational clinical research. He is chair of the World Federation of Neurology Applied Research Group on Coma and the European Academy of Neurology Subcommittee on Disorders of Consciousness. He is recipient of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award, the William James Prize (Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness) and the Blaise Pascal Medal of Medicine of the European Academy of Sciences. He has written 4 books and over 300 scientific papers on the subject of disorders of consciousness (H-index 65). Olivia Gosseries, PhD, is currently doing a post-doctoral research at the University of Madison at the Center for Sleep and Consciousness of Pr Tononi and Postle Laboratory of Pr Postle. She is working on consciousness and working memory using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). She received her Ph.D. in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences at the Coma Science Group, Cyclotron Research Centre, University of Liège in Belgium under the menthorship of Pr Laureys. She worked on the development of markers of consciousness to improve diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of patients with disorders of consciousness. Her work has led to more than 50 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and she recently received the Young Investigator Award from the International Brain Injury Association. Giulio Tononi, MD PhD is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. He is the director of the Center for Sleep and Consciousness at the University of Wisconsin, which focuses on the function of sleep and the nature of consciousness.. Together with his collaborators, he has been developing and testing a comprehensive hypothesis on the function of sleep, the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis. Research on consciousness has led to the integrated information theory, which tries to account for what consciousness is, how it can be measured, and how it is realized in the brain.He received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the John W. Severinghaus Award, the Pisa Sleep Award and he holds the David P. White Chair in Sleep Medicine, as well as a Distinguished Professor in Consciousness Science.