Brainstem auditory and short-latency somatosensory evoked responses in brain death.
Thirty-five patients who met all clinical criteria for brain death and 53 patients who did not were tested with brainstem auditory (BAER) and short-latency somatosensory (SER) evoked responses. Of the brain-dead patients, 77% had no waves present in the BAER, including wave I, whereas 69% had medullary components present in the SER. These data suggest that the SER has greater clinical utility in the brain-death setting, because it is important to have a wave present that established that the input signal has reached the central nervous system. No brain-dead patients had subsequent waves in either test. These results are correlated with neuropathologic findings and contrasted with data obtained in the comatose but not brain-dead patients.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001926:Brain Death / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000503:physiopathology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003128:Coma / Q000175:diagnosis; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008875:Middle Aged; D010525:Peripheral Nerves / Q000503:physiopathology; D011930:Reaction Time; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*