Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology
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Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol · Sep 1985
Case ReportsUnusual pattern of somatosensory and brain-stem auditory evoked potentials after cardio-respiratory arrest.
Two patients in coma after cardio-pulmonary arrest showed bilateral absence of all brain-stem auditory evoked potentials contrasting with normal brain-stem reflexes and normal somatosensory cortical evoked potentials. In both patients pre-existing dysfunction of peripheral auditory structures could be ruled out. Subsequent neuropathological analysis showed that the anoxic-ischaemic lesions were restricted to Sommer's sector and the Purkinje cells. These unusual data suggest the hypothesis that a severe hypoxic-ischaemic insult may impair cochlear function and interfere with the activation of the intact auditory pathways.