Spatial Properties of Mismatch Negativity in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness
Xiaoyu Wang1 • Rao Fu1 • Xiaoyu Xia2 • Xueling Chen2 • Han Wu3 • Nicole Landi4,5 • Ken Pugh4 • Jianghong He2,* • Fengyu Cong1,6,*
1School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
2Department of Neurosurgery, People’s Liberation Army General Hospital, Beijing 100700, China
3Faculty of Linguistic Science, Beijing Language and Culture University, Beijing 100083, China
4Haskins Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA
5Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, New Haven, CT 06269, USA
6Faculty of Information Technology, University of Jyvaskyla, Jyvaskyla 40014, Finland
Abstract
In recent decades, event-related potentials have been used for the clinical electrophysiological assessment of patients with disorders of consciousness (DOCs). In this paper, an oddball paradigm with two types of frequency-deviant stimulus (standard stimuli were pure tones of 1000 Hz; small deviant stimuli were pure tones of 1050 Hz; large deviant stimuli were pure tones of 1200 Hz) was applied to elicit mismatch negativity (MMN) in 30 patients with DOCs diagnosed using the JFK Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R). The results showed that the peak amplitudes of MMN elicited by both large and small deviant stimuli were significantly different from baseline. In terms of the spatial properties of MMN, a significant interaction effect between conditions (small and large deviant stimuli) and electrode nodes was centered at the frontocentral area. Furthermore, correlation coefficients were calculated between MMN amplitudes and CRS-R scores for each electrode among all participants to generate topographic maps. Meanwhile, a significant negative correlation between the MMN amplitudes elicited by large deviant stimuli and the CRS-R scores was also found at the frontocentral area. In consequence, our results combine the above spatial properties of MMN in patients with DOCs, and provide a more precise location (frontocentral area) at which to evaluate the correlation between clinical electrophysiological assessment and the level of consciousness.
Keywords
EEG; Mismatch negativity; Disorder of consciousness; Vegetative state; Minimally conscious state
