• Fabien Perrin, Caroline Schnakers, Manuel Schabus, Christian Degueldre, Serge Goldman, Serge Brédart, Marie-Elisabeth Faymonville, Maurice Lamy, Gustave Moonen, André Luxen, Pierre Maquet, and Steven Laureys.
• Laboratoire de Neurosciences & Systèmes Sensoriels, UMR-5020, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1-CNRS, 50 avenue Tony Garnier, 69366 Lyon CEDEX 07, France. fabien.perrin@univ-lyon1.fr
• Arch Neurol Chicago. 2006 Apr 1;63(4):562-9.

BackgroundA major challenge in the management of severely brain-injured patients with altered states of consciousness is to estimate their residual perception of the environment.ObjectiveTo investigate the integrity of detection of one's own name in patients in a behaviorally well-documented vegetative state (VS), patients in a minimally conscious state (MCS), and patients with locked-in syndrome.DesignWe recorded the auditory evoked potentials to the patient's own name and to 7 other equiprobable first names in 15 brain-damaged patients.ResultsA P3 component was observed in response to the patient's name in all patients with locked-in syndrome, in all MCS patients, and in 3 of 5 patients in a VS. P3 latency was significantly (P<.05) delayed for MCS and VS patients compared with healthy volunteers.ConclusionsThese results suggest that partially preserved semantic processing could be observed in noncommunicative brain-damaged patients, notably for the detection of salient stimuli, such as the subject's own name. This function seems delayed in MCS and (if present) in VS patients. More important, a P3 response does not necessarily reflect conscious perception and cannot be used to differentiate VS from MCS patients.

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