Brain Network Disruptions Related to Traumatic Coma

Overview

To provide a fine-grained description of the brain network dysfunctions induced by severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) or anoxic encephalopathy, that are responsible for the acute state of unarousable unawareness, named coma, this trial wants to explore the usefulness in this setting of a combined neuroimaging approaches encompassing several up-to-date techniques as structural MRI, fMRI and positron emission tomography (PET) scan (neuroinflammation ligands).

So far, the gold standard for neuroprognostication of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) or anoxic encephalopathy is the bedside behavioural evaluation. Nevertheless, the predictive value of such an exclusive clinical approach has been consistently reported as limited and insufficient in this challenging clinical setting. Recent theoretical and experimental data converge towards the idea of the critical implication of long-range brain connection in consciousness access and maintain. Nevertheless, previous studies have focused on the specific analysis of some targeted connections (regions of interest), and have used exclusively a single approach in neuroimaging (structural or functional imaging), with no interest in the neuro-inflammatory and neurodegenerative mechanisms likely associated with these disconnection phenomena. So, cerebral disconnection characterization at the level of the whole brain, at different stages of pathological abolition of consciousness must be made, on an anatomical, functional and metabolic scale. This descriptive study represents a first step in the identification of relevant multimodal imaging biomarkers. This will then lead to a larger study to identify the prognostic impact of these different biomarkers obtained in the acute phase of patient management.

Conditions

Interventions

Eligibility

Locations (1)

Outcomes