Does Madopar Have a Role in the Treatment of Prolonged Disorders of Consciousness? A Call for Randomized Controlled Trials.

It is suggested that dopaminergic treatment may contribute to accelerated improvement in patients with a disorder of consciousness (DoC). Dopamine is an important stimulatory neurotransmitter, which plays a key role in alertness, arousal, behavior, emotion, cognition, and motor function. We discuss our experience with Madopar in 2 patients with DoC and review the literature on dopaminergic medication in patients with DoC.

Modulation of human corticomuscular beta-range coherence with low-level static forces.

Although corticomuscular synchronization in the beta range (15-30 Hz) was shown to occur during weak steady-state contractions, an examination of low-level forces around 10% of the maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) is still missing. We addressed this question by investigating coherence between electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG) as well as cortical spectral power during a visuomotor task. Eight healthy right-handed subjects compensated isometrically static forces at a level of 4% and 16% of MVC with their right index finger.

Corticomuscular synchronization with small and large dynamic force output.

Background: Over the last few years much research has been devoted to investigating the synchronization between cortical motor and muscular activity as measured by EEG/MEG-EMG coherence. The main focus so far has been on corticomuscular coherence (CMC) during static force condition, for which coherence in beta-range has been described. In contrast, we showed in a recent study 1 that dynamic force condition is accompanied by gamma-range CMC.