Disorders of consciousness Recent studies have underscored that
recovery of consciousness after severe brain injury remains
poorly understood. Many of these investigations are very much in
the public eye in part because of their relationship to
controversies about end-of-life decisions in permanently
unconscious patients and the relationship to one of the major
philosophical, sociological, political, and religious questions
of humankind. This program focuses on our current understanding
of the clinical, neuroanatomical and functional underpinnings of
human consciousness by emphasizing a lesional approach offered
via the study of coma and related states. The challenges are
surprisingly difficult with a degree of diagnostic uncertainty
that may range at the bedside in some patients from unconscious
to fully aware, even for patients with no evidence of behavioral
responsiveness. As measurements improve, behaviorally defined
states from vegetative state (wakeful unawareness), minimally
conscious state (at least s