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Comment
. 2013 Nov 19:2:e01658.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.01658.

Awakened by a sleeping pill

Oluwaseun Akeju  1 , Emery N Brown
Affiliations
Comment

Awakened by a sleeping pill

Oluwaseun Akeju et al. Elife. .

Abstract

Characteristic changes in brain activity accompany the paradoxical increase in alertness observed in some patients with severe brain injury when they are treated with the sleeping pill zolpidem.

Keywords: Consciousness; GABA-A; anesthesia; arousal; central thalamus; striatum.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests:The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Zolpidem increases brain activity in some patients with severe brain injury. Positron emission tomography (PET) images of the brain of a patient with severe brain injury before (bottom) and after (top) taking the sleeping medication zolpidem. The brighter colours represent increased rates of glucose metabolism, which are used as a proxy of brain activity.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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