Hashimoto's encephalopathy (HE) is a completely treatable but relapsing neuroendocrine disorder associated with Hashimoto's thyroiditis (HT). Though numerous neurological manifestations are often associated with thyroid disorder, this entity is less documented. We are reporting a case of HE in a 65 year old female presenting with sudden onset deep coma following an attack of mild fever and vomi...

We report a 20-month-old girl with miliary pulmonary tuberculosis and normal neurological findings. While on treatment with isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol for 1 month, she developed weakness of the lower extremities without meningism or altered consciousness. A computerized tomogram revealed tuberculomas and basal arachnoiditis. The cerebrospinal fluid findings were compati...

No one did more to draw neuroscientists' attention to the problem of consciousness in the twentieth century than Francis Crick, who may be better known as the co-discoverer (with James Watson) of the structure of DNA. Crick focused his research on visual awareness and based his analysis on the progress made over the last fifty years in uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying visual percepti...

Until recently, most neuroscientists did not regard consciousness as a suitable topic for scientific investigation. This reluctance was based on certain philosophical mistakes, primarily the mistake of supposing that the subjectivity of consciousness made it beyond the reach of an objective science. Once we see that consciousness is a biological phenomenon like any other, then it can be investi...

"Consciousness" is the feeling that each individual has of his own existence (self-awareness) and also the state which permits him to perceive his environment (consciousness and wakefulness). These two types of consciousness, apparently quite different, are in fact the two converging stems of the perceptions that the nervous system provides to the organism. To explain this better, it is necessa...

The existence of normal sleep in patients in a vegetative state is still a matter of debate. Previous electrophysiological sleep studies in patients with disorders of consciousness did not differentiate patients in a vegetative state from patients in a minimally conscious state. Using high-density electroencephalographic sleep recordings, 11 patients with disorders of consciousness (six in a mi...

Engel et al. (1999) claim that ‘‘appropriate synchronization among cortical neurons may be one of the necessary conditions for the buildup of perceptual states and awareness of sensory stimuli.’’ The question I wish to examine in this brief comment is exactly what they mean by a ‘‘necessary condition’’ for consciousness. For example, gravity is surely necessary for human consciousness, for with...

What is consciousness? Consciousness continues to be an illdefined concept, so I shall start by discussing how the term is used in this special issue. As discussed in Overgaard and Overgaard (2010), there is an important distinction between level of consciousness and content of consciousness. Level of consciousness refers to a dimension that varies from coma at one extreme, through sleep and, a...