Objectives: This study investigated the prognostic effect of electroencephalography (EEG) instant effects of single spinal cord stimulation (SCS) on clinical outcome in disorders of consciousness (DOC) and the time-dependent brain response during the recovery of consciousness prompted by SCS.
Methods: Twenty three patients with DOC underwent short-term SCS (stSCS) implantation operation. Then, all patients received the postoperative EEG test including EEG record before (T1) and after (T2) single SCS session. Subsequently, 2 weeks stSCS treatment was performed and revised coma recovery scale (CRS-R) and EEG data were collected. Finally, they were classified into effective and ineffective groups at 3-month follow-up (T6).
Results: The parietal-occipital (PO) connectivity and clustering coefficients (CC) in the beta band of the effective group at the 1 week after the treatment (T5) were found to be higher than preoperative assessment (T0). Correlation analysis showed that the change in beta CC at T1/T2 was correlated with the change in CRS-R at T0/T6. In addition, the change in PO connectivity and CC in the beta at T0/T5 were also correlated with the change in CRS-R at T0/T5.
Conclusion: SCS may facilitate the recovery of consciousness by enhancing local information interaction in posterior brain regions. And the recovery can be predicted by beta CC in the EEG test.
Keywords: EEG; brain network; disorders of consciousness; frequency; functional connectivity; short-term spinal cord stimulation.
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