Disorder of consciousness and brain injury
The research of consciousness can benefit from the investigation of disorder of consciousness, or impaired consciousness. Loss of consciousness occurs when there is damage to the brain. There are three major forms of DOC, including coma, vegetative state, and minimally conscious states. In these situations, loss of consciousness is prolonged or even permanent. Several clinical studies indicate that the impairment of the thalamus-cortex and thalamus/basal ganglia contribute to the DOC (Lutkenhoff et al. , 2015; Yu et al. , 2021), providing clinical human evidence for the important roles of the thalamus-cortex network in consciousness. No doubt, the prolonged loss of consciousness may trigger subsequent plastic changes within the brain. As compared with the DOC, the use of anesthesia has also facilitated the search for a mechanism for acute loss of consciousness. Future studies of these mechanisms using animal models will help us to better understand the mechanism for reversible loss and permanent loss of consciousness.