Columbia University Irving Medical Center
August 14, 2023
Columbia researchers have identified brain injuries that may underlie hidden consciousness, a puzzling phenomenon in which brain-injured patients are unable to respond to simple commands, making them appear unconscious despite having some level of awareness.
“Our study(link is external and opens in a new window) suggests that patients with hidden consciousness can hear and comprehend verbal commands, but they cannot carry out those commands because of injuries in brain circuits that relay instructions from the brain to the muscles,” says study leader Jan Claassen, MD, associate professor of neurology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and chief of critical care and hospitalist neurology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center.