Brain death can sometimes be difficult to differentiate from other medical states such as barbiturate overdose, acute alcohol poisoning, sedative overdose, hypothermia, hypoglycemia, coma, and chronic vegetative states. Some comatose patients can recover to pre-coma or near pre-coma level of functioning, and some patients with severe irreversible neurological dysfunction will nonetheless retain some lower brain functions, such as spontaneous respiration, despite the losses of both cortex and brain stem functionality. Such is the case with anencephaly. Brain electrical activity can stop completely, or drop to such a low level as to be undetectable with most equipment. An EEG will therefore be flat, though this is sometimes also observed during deep anesthesia or cardiac arrest. Although in the United States a flat EEG test is not required to certify death, it is considered to have confirmatory value. In the UK it is not considered to be of value because any continuing activity it might reveal in parts of the brain above the brain stem is held to be irrelevant to the diagnosis of death on the Code of Practice criteria.The diagnosis of brain death is often required to be highly rigorous, in order to be certain that the condition is irreversible. Legal criteria vary, but in general require neurological examinations by two independent physicians.
Atrichia with papular lesions (a.k.a. "Papular atrichia") is a diffuse hair loss caused by an abnormality of the human homologue of the mouse hairless gene. : 635 : 762 It is associated with HR. See also
Cicatricial alopecia
List of cutaneous conditions

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