Figure 1

Brain areas with impaired cerebral glucose metabolism (blue) in patients in a vegetative state (without fixation) and in patients with visual fixation but showing all other clinical features of the vegetative state. Brainstem and cerebellum show a relatively preserved brain function (red). The graph illustrates the decreased metabolic activity (expressed in arbitrary units as normalized [¹⁸F]-fluorodeoxyglucose neuronal uptake) in the fronto-parietal cortical network in both patient groups as compared to normal healthy controls.