Responses of Patients with Disorders of Consciousness to Habit Stimulation: A Quantitative EEG Study

Whether habit stimulation is effective in DOC patient arousal has not been reported. In this paper, we analyzed the responses of DOC patients to habit stimulation. Nineteen DOC patients with alcohol consumption or smoking habits were recruited and 64-channel EEG signals were acquired both at the resting state and at three stimulation states. Wavelet transformation and nonlinear dynamics were used to extract the features of EEG signals and four brain lobes were selected to investigate the degree of EEG response to habit stimulation. Results showed that the highest degree of EEG response was from the call-name stimulation, followed by habit and music stimulations. Significant differences in EEG wavelet energy and response coefficient were found both between habit and music stimulation, and between habit and call-name stimulation. These findings prove that habit stimulation induces relatively more intense EEG responses in DOC patients than music stimulation, suggesting that it may be a relevant additional method for eliciting patient arousal.