Characterization of near death experiences using text mining analyses: A preliminary study

The notion that death represents a passing to an afterlife, where we are reunited with loved ones and live eternally in a utopian paradise, is common in the reports of people who have encountered a “Near-Death Experience” (NDE). NDEs are thoroughly portrayed by the media but empirical studies are rather recent. The definition of the phenomenon as well as the identification of NDE experiencers is still a matter of debate. To date, NDEs’ identification and description in studies have mostly derived from answered items in questionnaires. However, questionnaires’ content could be restricting and subject to personal interpretation. We believe that in addition to their use, user-independent statistical text examination of freely expressed NDEs narratives is of prior importance to help capture the phenomenology of such a subjective and complex phenomenon. Towards that aim, we included 158 participants with a firsthand retrospective narrative of their self-reported NDE that we analyzed using an automated text-mining method. The output revealed the top words expressed by experiencers. In a second step, a hierarchical clustering analysis was conducted to visualize the relationships between these words. It revealed three main clusters of features: visual perceptions, emotions and spatial components. We believe the user-independent and data-driven text mining approach used in this study is promising by contributing to the building a rigorous description and definition of NDEs

Intérêt et utilisation de l’hypnose pour améliorer le bien-être physique et psychologique en oncologie

Le cancer et ses traitements ont de nombreux effets secondaires : douleurs, fatigue, difficultés de sommeil, nausées, vomissements, bouffées de chaleur, détresse émotionnelle. Ces symptômes impactent négativement la qualité de vie des patients et perdurent souvent pendant des années après les traitements. Malgré la difficulté à traiter ces effets secondaires au moyen d’approches pharmacologiques, l’hypnose a souvent été laissée de côté en oncologie. L’hypnose est définie comme un état de conscience modifié au cours duquel des processus d’attention et de concentration focalisées permettent au sujet une absorption dans son monde intérieur associée à une relative mise en suspens de la conscience de l’environnement. Durant cette procédure, un professionnel suggère au patient des changements dans ses sensations, perceptions, pensées ou comportements. Plusieurs études ont mis en évidence l’efficacité de l’hypnose pour diminuer la douleur provoquée par les traitements et procédures oncologiques. ’hypnose est également utile dans le cadre de la gestion de la fatigue liée au cancer. Des interventions combinant hypnose et thérapie cognitivocomportementale ou auto-bienveillance ont montré des effets positifs à ce niveau. Par ailleurs, l’hypnose permet une amélioration de la détresse émotionnelle liée aux procédures médicales et du bien-être psychologique général, ainsi qu’une diminution de certains symptômes physiques comme les nausées et les bouffées de chaleur. Les techniques de neuro-imagerie mettent en évidence des processus cérébraux spécifiques à l’état d’hypnose. Nous pouvons ainsi mieux comprendre les mécanismes sous-jacents aux modifications comportementales rapportées par les patients qui bénéficient de l’hypnose dans leur prise en charge.Cancer and its treatments have several consequences: pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, nausea, vomiting, hot flashes, and emotional distress. These symptoms negatively affect patients’ quality of life and can persist for years after treatment completion. Despite the difficulty to improve them with pharmacological approaches, hypnosis has often been ignored in oncology settings. Hypnosis can be defined as a particular state of consciousness during which focalized attention and concentration processes allows the person to be absorbed in their inner world, associated with a suspension of the awareness of the environment. During this procedure, a therapist will suggest to the patient some changes in their sensations, perceptions, thoughts or behaviors. Studies have shown the efficacy of hypnosis to decrease treatment and procedure-related pain in oncology. Hypnosis is also useful to deal with cancer-related fatigue. Interventions combining hypnosis and cognitive-behavioral therapy or self-care techniques have shown positive effects on fatigue. Hypnosis also helps to improve procedure-related emotional distress and psychological well-being, as well as some physical symptoms such as nausea and hot flashes. Neuroimaging studies highlighted specific neural mechanisms of hypnotic state, allowing to better understand behavioral modifications reported by patients, after hypnosis

Analyse qualitative thématique de la phénoménologie des expériences de mort imminente

peer reviewedNear-death experiences (NDEs) refer to profound psychological events that can have an important impact on the experiencers’ (NDErs) lives. Previous studies have shown that NDEs memories are phenomenologically rich. In the present study, we therefore aimed to extract the common themes (referred to as “features” in the NDE literature) reported by NDErs by analyzing all the concepts stored in the narratives of their experiences. A qualitative thematic analysis has been carried out on 34 cardiac arrest survivors’ NDE narratives. Our results shed the light on the structure of the narratives by identifying 10 “time-bounded” themes which refer to isolated events encountered during the NDE and 1 “transversal” theme which characterizes the whole narrative and generally appears as a retrospective comment of self-reflection on the experience. The division of narratives into themes provides us with detailed information about the vocabulary used by NDErs to describe their experience. This established thematic method enables a rigorous description of the phenomenon, ensuring the inclusion of all self-reported manifestations of themes in narratives

Resistance to eye opening in patients with disorders of consciousness

Introduction: Resistance to eye opening (REO) is a commonly encountered phenomenon in clinical practice. We aim to investigate whether REO is a sign of consciousness or a reflex in severely brain-injured patients. Methods: We recorded REO in chronic patients with disorders of consciousness during a multimodal diagnostic assessment. REO evaluations were performed daily in each patient and clinical diagnosis of unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS), minimally conscious state with (MCS+) or without (MCS−) preserved language processing was made using the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R). Results: Out of 150 consecutive patients, 79 patients fit inclusion criteria. REO was seen in 19 patients (24.1%). At the group level, there was a significant relationship between the presence of REO and the level of consciousness. We also observed a difference in the repeatability of REO between patients in UWS, MCS− and MCS+. Out of 23 patients in UWS, six showed REO, in whom five showed atypical brain patterns activation. Conclusion: Our findings suggest a voluntary basis for REO and stress the need for multiple serial assessments of REO in these patients, especially since most patients show fluctuating levels of consciousness. © 2018 Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Natur

Needs and quality of life in caregivers of patients with prolonged disorders of consciousness

peer reviewe

Correlation between resting state fMRI total neuronal activity and PET metabolism in healthy controls and patients with disorders of consciousness.

INTRODUCTION: The mildly invasive 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) is a well-established imaging technique to measure \u27resting state\u27 cerebral metabolism. This technique made it possible to assess changes in metabolic activity in clinical applications, such as the study of severe brain injury and disorders of consciousness. OBJECTIVE: We assessed the possibility of creating functional MRI activity maps, which could estimate the relative levels of activity in FDG-PET cerebral metabolic maps. If no metabolic absolute measures can be extracted, our approach may still be of clinical use in centers without access to FDG-PET. It also overcomes the problem of recognizing individual networks of independent component selection in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) resting state analysis. METHODS: We extracted resting state fMRI functional connectivity maps using independent component analysis and combined only components of neuronal origin. To assess neuronality of components a classification based on support vector machine (SVM) was used. We compared the generated maps with the FDG-PET maps in 16 healthy controls, 11 vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome patients and four locked-in patients. RESULTS: The results show a significant similarity with ρ = 0.75 ± 0.05 for healthy controls and ρ = 0.58 ± 0.09 for vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome patients between the FDG-PET and the fMRI based maps. FDG-PET, fMRI neuronal maps, and the conjunction analysis show decreases in frontoparietal and medial regions in vegetative patients with respect to controls. Subsequent analysis in locked-in syndrome patients produced also consistent maps with healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS: The constructed resting state fMRI functional connectivity map points toward the possibility for fMRI resting state to estimate relative levels of activity in a metabolic map

Metabolic activity in external and internal awareness networks in severely brain-damaged patients.

OBJECTIVE: An extrinsic cerebral network (encompassing lateral frontoparietal cortices) related to external/sensory awareness and an intrinsic midline network related to internal/self-awareness have been identified recently. This study measured brain metabolism in both networks in patients with severe brain damage. DESIGN: Prospective [18F]-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography and Coma Recovery Scale-Revised assessments in a university hospital setting. SUBJECTS: Healthy volunteers and patients in vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS), minimally conscious state (MCS), emergence from MCS (EMCS), and locked-in syndrome (LIS). RESULTS: A total of 70 patients were included in the study: 24 VS/UWS, 28 MCS, 10 EMCS, 8 LIS and 39 age-matched controls. VS/UWS showed metabolic dysfunction in extrinsic and intrinsic networks and thalami. MCS showed dysfunction mostly in intrinsic network and thalami. EMCS showed impairment in posterior cingulate/retrosplenial cortices. LIS showed dysfunction only in infratentorial regions. Coma Recovery Scale-Revised total scores correlated with metabolic activity in both extrinsic and part of the intrinsic network and thalami. CONCLUSION: Progressive recovery of extrinsic and intrinsic awareness network activity was observed in severely brain-damaged patients, ranging from VS/UWS, MCS, EMCS to LIS. The predominance of intrinsic network impairment in MCS could reflect altered internal/self-awareness in these patients, which is difficult to quantify at the bedside

Détection de signes de conscience chez des patients sévèrement cérébro- lésés avec le contrôle volontaire de la respiration.

Suite à un accident cérébral grave, les patients peuvent évoluer d’un coma (patient non-éveillable et inconscient), vers un état végétatif/syndrome d’éveil non-répondant (patient éveillé mais inconscient), vers un état de conscience minimale (patient éveillé et conscient, mais non-communiquant), ou un locked-in syndrome (patient éveillé, conscient, mais ne pouvant exprimer sa conscience que par le biais de mouvements oculaires). L’attribution d’un diagnostic différentiel suite aux évaluations cliniques à l’aide d’échelles comportementales peut se révéler extrêmement complexe avec un taux d’erreurs diagnostiques pouvant toucher plus de 4 patients sur 10 (Childs, Mercer, & Childs, 1993; Schnakers, Vanhaudenhuyse, Giacino, Ventura, Boly et al., 2009c). Ce diagnostic aura un impact tant au niveau éthique que clinique, influant sur les décisions de fins de vie comme sur les soins et traitements prodigués au patient (Demertzi, Schnakers, Ledoux, Chatelle, Bruno et al., 2009; Johnson, 2011). Afin d’affiner le diagnostic des états de conscience altérée, un vaste champ de recherche s’est créé ayant pour but le développement d’outils objectifs complémentaires à l’examen comportemental clinique. Le but de ce travail s’inscrit donc dans le cadre de la mise au point de techniques permettant de détecter des signes de conscience chez ces patients incapables de communiquer et d’exprimer leur conscience par les voies classiques. En effet, nous avons proposé l’utilisation du sniff controller, une toute nouvelle technique permettant de répondre à la commande par la respiration. Notre paradigme, utilisé pour la première fois auprès de patients atteints de trouble de la conscience, avait pour but de demander aux patients de moduler volontairement leur respiration afin de dépasser un seuil prédéfini. Selon les résultats obtenus, il semble que le sniff controller, moyennant plus d’essais et certaines modifications à apporter au système et au paradigme, pourrait se révéler être un outil complémentaire dans l’évaluation para-clinique de ces patients. En effet, l’utilisation de ce système pourrait se révéler comme plus sensible à la détection de réponse à la commande que les évaluations comportementales. De plus, il s’agit d’une interface peu dispendieuse, relativement simple d’utilisation, transportable au chevet du patient et tout à fait non-invasive. Par ailleurs, en ne reposant pas directement sur l’activité cérébrale, cette technique n’est pas sensible aux artéfacts cérébraux inhérents aux lésions cérébrales rencontrées chez les patients

Coma and related disorders

Disorders of consciousness represent a major challenge in clinical practice. The last decade of neuroscience research brought new insights about brain function and neural correlates of these pathological states of consciousness. Although behavioural evaluation still remains the gold standard, conscious behaviours are too often missed, leading to unwanted grey zones between conscious and unconscious patients. In order to increase the chances of detecting the signs of consciousness, scientists now focus on the development and validation of neuroimaging and electrophysiological paradigms in noncommunicative patients. Recent insights in this field also raise new questions of medical ethics. Indeed, for conscious patients, legal questions will occur about treatment plans, rehabilitation and communication strategies while for the unconscious patients, end-of-life decisions will take place after the patients’ condition is stated as “permanent” or “irreversible”

False memory susceptibility in coma survivors with and without a near-death experience

It has been postulated that memories of neardeath experiences (NDEs) could be (at least in part) reconstructions based on experiencers’ (NDErs) previous knowledge and could be built as a result of the individual’s attempt to interpret the confusing experience. From the point of view of the experiencer, NDE memories are perceived as being unrivalled memories due to its associated rich phenomenology. However, the scientific literature devoted to the cognitive functioning of NDErs in general, and their memory performance in particular, is rather limited. This study examined NDErs’ susceptibility to false memories using the Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) paradigm. We included 20 NDErs who reported having had their experience in the context of a life-threatening event (Greyson NDE scale total score ≥7/32) and 20 volunteers (matched for age, gender, education level, and time since brain insult) who reported a life-threatening event but without a NDE. Both groups were presented with DRM lists for a recall task during which they were asked to assign “Remember/Know/Guess” judgements to any recalled response. In addition, they were later asked to complete a post-recall test designed to obtain estimates of activation and monitoring of critical lures. Results demonstrated that NDErs and volunteers were equally likely to produce false memories, but that NDErs recalled them more frequently associated with compelling illusory recollection. Of particular interest, analyses of activation and monitoring estimates suggest that NDErs and volunteers groups were equally likely to think of critical lures, but source monitoring was less successful in NDErs compared to volunteers