The Neurology of Consciousness

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. Steven Laureys, MD M.Sc Ph.D, University of Liège, Cyclotron Research Centre and Dept. of Neurology * 2000: Ph.D. in Medical Science, University of Liège, Liège Clinical researcher at the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique de Belgique (FNRS), Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Liège Neurology Consultant, University Hospital Sart Tilman, Liège Research Consultant, University Hospital Erasme, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels * 1998: Qualified in Neurology, Ministry of Health, Belgium * 1997: M.Sc. Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels * 1993: M.D. Doctor in Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels  REVIEWS: "Laureys and the Liege school have shifted the paradigm in the clinical understanding of disturbed consciousness. He and Tononi have edited a ground breaking book. In this field the book to have and read next to Plum and Posner's Diagnosis of Stupor and Coma is now Laureys and Tononi. Clinicians need to be aware of the recent rapid advances in consciousness studies, many occasioned by imaging and non-invasive brain monitoring, because they will affect management of their most vulnerable patients." - Richard Frackowiak, University College London and Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris "An outstandingly unique book reassembling the most recent data of the rising science of consciousness." - Jean-Pierre Changeux, College de France "Here, at last, is a survey of the way that damage to the brain alters consciousness. This volume is a well-equipped hardware shop with most of the pieces that are needed to build a state-of-the-art model of how the brain performs its most magical function, the creation of a self that sees, perceives, knows that it does so, and dares to ask how." - Allan Hobson, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA TABLE OF CONTENTS: Preface: Steven Laureys and Giulio Tononi; ; 1. Consciousness: an overview of the phenomenon and of its possible neural basis.; 2. The neurological examination of consciousness.; 3. Evaluating consciousness by measuring brain function. ; 4. Consciousness and neural synchronization. ; 5. Neural correlates of visual consciousness. ; 6. The relationship between consciousness and attention. ; ; WAKING, SLEEP AND ANESTHESIA; 7. Intrinsic Brain Activity and Consciousness. ; 8. Sleep and dreaming.; 9. Sleepwalking. 10. General Anesthesia and Consciousness. ; ; COMA AND RELATED CONDITIONS; Coma.; 12. Brain death.; 13. The Assessment of Conscious Awareness in the Vegetative State.; 14. The Minimally Conscious State: Clinical Features, Pathophysiology and Therapeutic Implications.; 15. Locked-in syndrome.; 16. Dementia. ; 17. Brain-computer interfaces for communication in paralysed patients and implications for disorders of consciousness.; 18. Neuroethics and Disorders of Consciousness: A Pragmatic Approach to Neuro-palliative Care.; ; SEIZURES, SPLITS, NEGLECTS, AND ASSORTED DISORDERS ; 19. Epilepsy and Consciousness.; 20. The Left Hemisphere Does Not Miss the Right Hemisphere.; 21. Visual consciousness: an updated neurological tour.; 22. The neurophysiology of self-awareness disorders in conversion hysteria.; 23. Leaving body and life behind : Out-of-body and near-death experience.; 24. The hippocampus, memory, and consciousness.; 25. Syndromes of Transient Amnesia.; 26. Consciousness and aphasia.; 27. Blindness and Consciousness: New Light from the Dark.; 28. The Neurology of Consciousness: An Overview.