Regional brain monitoring in the neurocritical care unit

Regional multimodality monitoring has evolved over the last several years as a tool to understand the mechanisms of brain injury and brain function at the cellular level. Multimodality monitoring offers an important augmentation to the clinical exam and is especially useful in comatose neurocritical care patients. Cerebral microdialysis, brain tissue oxygen monitoring, and cerebral blood flow monitoring all offer insight into permutations in brain chemistry and function that occur in the context of brain injury. These tools may allow for development of individual therapeutic strategies that are mechanistically driven and goal-directed. We present a summary of the discussions that took place during the Second Neurocritical Care Research Conference regarding regional brain monitoring.