The Neurology of Consciousness: Cognitive Neuroscience and NeuropathologySteven Laureys, Giulio Tononi Understanding consciousness is the major unsolved problem in biology. One increasingly important method of studying consciousness is to study disorders of consciousness, e.g. brain damage and disease states leading to vegetative states, coma, minimally conscious states, etc. Many of these studies are very much in the public eye because of their relationship to controversies about coma patients (e.g. Terry Schiavo case in the US recently), and the relationship to one of the major philosophical, sociological, political, and religious questions of humankind.This is the first book to summarize our current understanding of the neuroanatomical and functional underpinnings of human consciousness by emphasizing a lesional approach offered via the study of neurological patients. The selected contributors are all outstanding authors and undisputed leaders in their field. - New chapters on the neuroanatomical basis of consciousness, functional intrinsic brain activity, anesthesia, as well as expanded coverage of the unresponsive wakefulness syndrome/ vegetative state and the minimally conscious state - The first comprehensive, authoritative collection to describe disorders of consciousness and how they are used to study and understand the neural correlates of conscious perception in humans - Includes revised and new chapters from the top international researchers in the field |
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absence seizures Acad Sci USA Alzheimer's disease amnesia anaesthesia anaesthetic anosognosia associated auditory behaviour bilateral blind blood flow brain activity brain death brain function brain injury brain regions Brain Res brain-computer interface brainstem cerebral cerebral cortex cingulate Clin clinical Cogn cognitive coma complex conscious experience cortical areas deficits diagnosis disorders dissociation dreams effects epilepsy episodes Figure fMRI frontal functional neuroimaging global hippocampus human impaired consciousness input Laureys left hemisphere lesions locked-in syndrome mechanisms medial memory metabolic minimally conscious motor Nat Neurosci Natl Acad Sci NDEs ness neuroimaging Neurology neurons Neurophysiol neuropsychological Neurosci normal NREM OBEs object organ parietal pathways patterns perception persistent vegetative posterior prefrontal Proc Natl Acad processing Psychiatr reflexes REM sleep reported responses right hemisphere sciousness seizures sensory spatial stimuli structures studies subjects symptoms synchronization tactile task temporal lobe thalamus tion Tononi top-down attention transient unconscious vegetative ventral wakefulness