Cortical recordings reveal hidden early signs of recovery following traumatic brain injury: A case report.

Prognosticating recovery of consciousness after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a difficult task. Understanding the mechanism of recovery of consciousness in these patients will undoubtedly help clarify this issue. Recent research has underscored the importance of electrophysiological data in characterizing the state of the brain during this period of unconsciousness. Here, we investigated cortical electrophysiological recordings from a single TBI patient and discovered that high-frequency activity associated with the return of consciousness reappeared in a spatiotemporal fashion. We observed a shift toward higher frequencies first in the anterior cingulate cortex, and then later in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This finding suggests that recovery may originate in more internal cortices and progress to superficial ones. Although this observation occurred in a single patient, it points to a potential mechanism for recovery of normal cortical activity in the return of consciousness following TBI.