Prognostication of Recovery in Early Disorders of Consciousness Study

Launched by UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA · Jul 16, 2025

Keywords

ClinConnect Summary

Patients with disorders of consciousness (lacking overt signs of consciousness such as command-following) due to acute brain injury will be identified and enrolled via the Recovery of Consciousness Via Evidence-Based Medicine and Research (RECOVER) Program. Patients in the study will undergo a detailed behavioral consciousness assessment (with the Coma Recovery Scale - Revised \[CRS-R\]), conducted by specially trained personnel, as well as a task-based functional MRI with auditory stimulation (motor commands) to assess for technologic covert consciousness (the willful modulation of brain a...

Gender

ALL

Eligibility criteria

• For patients:
• Inclusion Criteria:
• • Acute brain injury (including, but not limited to ischemic stroke, intracranial hemorrhage, anoxic brain injury, traumatic brain injury, or encephalitis)
• • Inability to follow commands due to a disorder of consciousness (comatose, vegetative, or minimally conscious state) caused by the underlying brain injury
• • Age 18 or greater
• • Enrolled within 28 days of brain injury
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • Imminent death (as indicated, for example, by planned transition to palliative measures, brain death testing, or severe medical instability)
• • MRI contraindications would exclude patients from imaging component of study
• For healthy controls:
• Exclusion Criteria:
• • MRI contraindications
• • History of brain injury to neurological disease
• • History of diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease