Title:True or False? Activations of Language-related Areas in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness
Volume: 20
Issue: 26
Author(s): Boris Kotchoubey, Tao Yu, Friedemann Mueller, Dominik Vogel, Sandra Veser and Simone Lang
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Consciousness, fMRI, Language, Minimally Conscious State, Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome (Vegetative State), World
Knowledge.
Abstract: Twenty-nine patients with Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome (UWS), 26 patients in Minimally Conscious State (MCS),
and 21 healthy control individuals matched in age and social environment (patients’ relatives) were presented with 80 short sentences
half of which were factually correct, and the other half factually incorrect. The diagnosis was made on the basis of repeated neurological
examinations as well as the standardized assessment using a Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R). fMRI blood oxygen level dependent
signal was recorded in an event-related design time-locked to the end word of the sentences. In the contrast “incorrect-minus-correct”
significant activations in the relevant brain regions were obtained in 17 (81%) controls and in 16 (29%) patients. Among patients, the 16
responders had a significantly longer time since accident than the 39 non-responders. Responders and non-responders did not differ in
terms of the diagnosis (UWS vs. MCS), age, CRS-R score, or the degree of brain atrophy. The data concur with the results of several earlier
studies on UWS/MCS patients, with the difference that the critical stimuli in those studies were semantically incongruent or ambiguous
propositions rather than factually false ones in the present experiment. The hypothesis is discussed that the differential response of
brain language areas to factually correct and incorrect statements does not require conscious perception of the statements.
