London, Ont. researchers develop tool to detect consciousness in ICU

Researchers at the Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University have developed a new tool at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) to detect consciousness in patients who have suffered a severe brain injury.

Researchers at the Lawson Health Research Institute and Western University have developed a new tool, being used at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), to detect consciousness in patients who have suffered a severe brain injury.

The tool is used on patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) and are in a coma.

The discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), by the research team led by Dr. Karnig Kazazian, Dr. Androu Abdalmalak and Dr. Derek Debicki.

Researchers used a functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), which is a portable brain imaging technique, to see if unresponsive patients had preserved consciousness, by recording brain activity.

The technique was used to see if patients could feel pain, hear what’s around them and retain preserved conscious awareness.

According to a news release from the LHSC, the technique was tested on 100 healthy people, before using fNIRS on a patient in the ICU.

Despite being unresponsive, the patient showed the appropriate brain responses to the instruction of “imagine playing a game of tennis”.