About this Research Topic
Disorders of consciousness, including coma, can be induced by different causes, either traumatic or non-traumatic, which ultimately interfere with or physically disrupt specific anatomical structures of the central nervous system that are subjacent to the control and mechanisms of statuses such as arousal and awareness. These clinical aspects immediately direct to more fundamental questions and research on the mechanisms related to what broadly defines consciousness.
There has been a plethora of theories of consciousness during the last few decades. However, as with most of the theories, each theory of consciousness needs to pass the experimental verification. This last aspect has been more than a challenge for the entire scientific community interested in unifying predictable and measurable physiological aspects of the consciousness with outcomes coming from the clinics. However, more and more findings from neuroanatomical aspects to functional imaging observations are revealing new aspects and defining more specifically the main anatomical sites and processes related to coma mechanisms, disorders of consciousness, and processes associated with the mechanisms of consciousness medically intended as well as to the physiological status of arousal and awareness. At the same time, this new data poses new challenges in terms of how to re-define prognostic expectations, life-support tools, and rehabilitative treatments together with the emergence of new neuroethical aspects, which trigger and will trigger even more serious debates across scientific and non-scientific communities in the near future.
This Research Topic aims to collect studies performed by clinical and non-clinical researchers and hopes to include some of the most updated and possibly unifying data across the full spectrum of the arousal and awareness mechanisms from any disorders of consciousness to possibly experimentally verifiable theories of consciousness. Due to the nature of the topic, we wish to collect robust analyses from all those researchers directly dealing with either clinical or more theoretical aspects of disorders of consciousness, coma mechanisms, and theories of consciousness to offer the readers unifying views or directions for this ultimate frontier of neuroscience. Neuropharmacology and anesthesiology experts are welcome to submit their studies as well.
There has been a plethora of theories of consciousness during the last few decades. However, as with most of the theories, each theory of consciousness needs to pass the experimental verification. This last aspect has been more than a challenge for the entire scientific community interested in unifying predictable and measurable physiological aspects of the consciousness with outcomes coming from the clinics. However, more and more findings from neuroanatomical aspects to functional imaging observations are revealing new aspects and defining more specifically the main anatomical sites and processes related to coma mechanisms, disorders of consciousness, and processes associated with the mechanisms of consciousness medically intended as well as to the physiological status of arousal and awareness. At the same time, this new data poses new challenges in terms of how to re-define prognostic expectations, life-support tools, and rehabilitative treatments together with the emergence of new neuroethical aspects, which trigger and will trigger even more serious debates across scientific and non-scientific communities in the near future.
This Research Topic aims to collect studies performed by clinical and non-clinical researchers and hopes to include some of the most updated and possibly unifying data across the full spectrum of the arousal and awareness mechanisms from any disorders of consciousness to possibly experimentally verifiable theories of consciousness. Due to the nature of the topic, we wish to collect robust analyses from all those researchers directly dealing with either clinical or more theoretical aspects of disorders of consciousness, coma mechanisms, and theories of consciousness to offer the readers unifying views or directions for this ultimate frontier of neuroscience. Neuropharmacology and anesthesiology experts are welcome to submit their studies as well.
Keywords: Clinical imaging, neurophysiological, neuropathology, neuroethics studies, disorders of consciousness, coma mechanisms, theories of consciousness, consciousness, neuropharmacology, anesthesiology
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