Research Unit in Affective and Social Neuroscience, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milano, Italy.
Department of Psychology, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milano, Italy.
Neuropsychol Rehabil. 2020 Oct;30(9):1629-1647. doi: 10.1080/09602011.2019.1595020. Epub 2019 Mar 27.
Covert measures of information-processing are valuable tools to support assessment of patients' disorders of consciousness because of their potential in revealing what seem to be hidden. Those measures allow to overcome some limitations of traditional behavioural methods, which are often biased by difficulties in detecting reliable patients' responses. Therefore, we aimed at exploring patterns of psychophysiological responses (electroencephalography - EEG, skin conductance level - SCL, skin conductance response - SCR, heart rate - HR) marking potentially-preserved processing of personally-relevant stimuli in a sample of VS patients. In particular, we compared the processing of own vs. other names due to the intrinsic salience, relevance, and familiarity of such stimuli. Analysis of electroencephalography, skin conductance and heart rate modulations highlighted a consistent pattern of increased skin conductance and heart rate measures in response to patients' own name with respect to other names. Further, we observed increased delta and decreased alpha activity over frontal areas in response to their own name with respect to other names. Own-name stimuli might preserve their peculiar qualification even after severe brain damage and might call on residual attention orientation and preferred coding resources, suggesting the existence of partly preserved information-processing pathways that extends beyond basic auditory sensory processing.
隐蔽的信息处理测量是支持评估意识障碍患者的有价值的工具，因为它们有可能揭示看似隐藏的东西。这些措施可以克服传统行为方法的一些局限性，传统行为方法往往受到难以检测到可靠的患者反应的影响。因此，我们旨在探索心理生理反应模式（脑电图 - EEG、皮肤电导率水平 - SCL、皮肤电导率反应 - SCR、心率 - HR），以标记 VS 患者样本中潜在保留的个人相关刺激的处理。特别是，我们比较了对自身姓名和他人姓名的处理，因为这些刺激具有内在的显著性、相关性和熟悉性。脑电图、皮肤电导率和心率调制分析突出了对患者自身姓名的皮肤电导率和心率测量值一致增加的模式，而对他人姓名的测量值则相反。此外，我们观察到自身姓名相对于他人姓名时，额区的 delta 活动增加，alpha 活动减少。即使在严重的脑损伤后，自身姓名可能仍然保留其特殊的特征，并且可能需要保留的注意力定向和首选编码资源，这表明存在部分保留的信息处理途径，这些途径超出了基本的听觉感觉处理。
