Limited treatments are available to improve consciousness in severely brain injured patients. Transcranial Direct Current stimulation (tDCS) is one of the few therapeutics that showed evidence of efficacy to increase level of consciousness and functional communication in some Minimally Conscious State (MCS) patients, and in some Vegetative State (VS) patients. However the mechanisms by which tDCS improves consciousness are poorly understood and the electrophysiological effects of such a stimulation have never been studied in disorders of consciousness patients. In this study, the investigators will use detailed clinical examinations and electrophysiological assessments (quantitative high-density EEG and event-related potentials) to assess the effect of a open-label single session of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex tDCS stimulation administered as routine care.
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Support vector machine multivariate prediction of consciousness from resting state EEG markers
Timeframe: Two time points: immediately before (baseline) and immediately after stimulation (post-stimulation)
Evoked response potential during auditory oddball paradigm
Timeframe: Two time points: immediately before (baseline) and immediately after stimulation (post-stimulation)