RESEARCH ARTICLE


Challenges and Pitfalls Associated with Diagnostic and Prognostic Applications of Functional Neuroimaging in Disorders of Consciousness



Yelena G. Bodien*, Joseph T. Giacino
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital-Harvard Medical School, Charlestown MA, USA


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Creative Commons License
© Bodien and Giacino; Licensee Bentham Open.

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode), which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.

Correspondence: Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital-Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA; Tel: (617) 952-6308; E-mail: ybodien@partners.org


Abstract

The diagnostic assessment of patients with disorder of consciousness is currently based on clinical testing at the bedside and prone to a high error rate in the assessment of the degree of conscious awareness. Investigation of more objective assessment strategies, such as the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect conscious awareness, are becoming increasingly popular in the research community. However, inherent challenges to the use of fMRI threaten its validity as a diagnostic tool and will need to be resolved prior to its integration into the clinical setting. These challenges, which range from the heterogeneity of the patient sample to factors influencing data acquisition and biases in interpretation strategies, are discussed below. Recommendations aimed at mitigating some of the limitations are provided.

Keywords: Blood-oxygen level dependent signal, disorders of consciousness, functional magnetic resonance imaging, minimally conscious state, vegetative state.