Cortical connectivity modulation induced by cerebellar oscillatory transcranial direct current stimulation in patients with chronic disorders of consciousness: A marker of covert cognition?

摘要

Objective: Although some patients suffering from unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS) may retain some capacity for covert cognition, it is difficult to directly demonstrate this property by means of tasks needing patient active cooperation and preserved top-down attention processes. Instead, specific passive paradigms may allow identifying a residual theta and gamma band functional connectivity within fronto-parietal networks (FPN), which may sustain covert cognitive processes.