[Functional neurologic studies in the diagnosis of coma]

Despite the development of medical imaging, functional exploration of the central nervous system by means of EEG and evoked potentials still plays an important role in the diagnosis and monitoring of coma. Together with clinical examination, these techniques contribute to the assessment of coma depth and inform, sometimes earlier than clinical signs, on the course of the coma. Finally, the data supplied by paraclinical explorations have a diagnostic value in cases of acute encephalitis, dysmetabolic diseases, drug poisoning or severe cerebral anoxia.