Abstract
An electrophysiological study was carried out on the pain-related P250 in 19 cases of a persistent vegetative state. The pain-related P250 has the ability to assess the cortical responsiveness to painful stimuli directly and quantitatively without involving functions of the motor system. Among the 19 cases, 8 were treated by deep-brain stimulation (DBS) and 11 were not. As a result, the cases with a recorded pain-related P250 were found to show a strong therapeutic effect of DBS. A correlation was also noted between the improvement in the neurological symptoms and increased amplitude of the pain-related P250. It is inferred that the pain-related P250 represents a useful tool for assessing the indications and therapeutic effects of DBS in patients in a persistent vegetative state.
