Spatio-Temporal Analysis of EEG Features during Consciousness Recovery in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness

Abstract Objective As consciousness recovery is not only dynamic but also involves interactions between various brain regions, elucidating the mechanism of recovery requires tracking cortical activity in spatio-temporal dimensions. Methods We tracked the cortical activities of 40 patients (mean age: 54.38 years; 28 males; 21 patients with minimally conscious states) with disorders of consciousness, and collected a total of 156 electroencephalographic signals. We investigated the longitudinal changes in EEG nonlinear dynamic features (i.e., approximate entropy, sample entropy, and Lempel-Ziv complexity) and relative wavelet energy along with consciousness recovery. Results Global EEG features showed a non-monotonic trend during consciousness recovery (P Conclusions EEG recovery was non-monotonic and dissimilar in spatio-temporal dimensions, with an inflection point. Significance These findings further clarify the process of consciousness recovery and provide assistance in exploring the mechanism of consciousness recovery.