Brian L. Edlow, MD and Olivia Gosseries, PhD

The Guest Editors of this issue of Seminars in Neurology are Drs. Brian Edlow and Olivia Gosseries.

Dr. Edlow received his BA from Princeton University and MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed an internal medicine internship at Brigham and Women's Hospital, followed by neurology residency and neurocritical care fellowship at Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's Hospitals, respectively. He is currently a critical care neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is Associate Professor of Neurology, Associate Director of the Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, and Director of the Laboratory for NeuroImaging of Coma and Consciousness. Dr. Edlow's research focuses on detecting consciousness, predicting outcomes, and facilitating new therapies for patients with severe traumatic brain injury. His laboratory's work has been continuously funded since 2010 by grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense (DOD), and multiple foundations, and he is the recipient of the 2019 NIH Director's New Innovator Award. Dr. Edlow serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Neurocritical Care Society's Curing Coma Campaign, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Neurotrauma, and is a Co-Chair of the NINDS Common Data Elements Project on Disorders of Consciousness. He also serves as the Principal Investigator of the DOD-funded ReBlast study, which aims to identify diagnostic biomarkers of blast-induced brain injury in U.S. Special Operations Forces service members.

Dr. Gosseries is a neuropsychologist, research associate FNRS, and co-director of the Coma Science Group at the GIGA Consciousness, University of Liege in Belgium. She studies pathological, physiological, and pharmacological modifications of consciousness using behavioral assessments and imaging technologies. She received both her BA and Master's Degree in Psychology and Educational Sciences from the Université Libre de Bruxelles, followed by a PhD in Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Liege and Université Libre de Bruxelles, respectively. Her early work focused on diagnosis and prognosis in patients with disorders of consciousness recovering from coma using noninvasive brain stimulation and electrophysiology. In recent years, she has worked more extensively on therapeutic options for this challenging patient population. For 3 years, she worked at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (United States) studying sleep and working memory. To study human consciousness more globally, she now also investigates anesthesia, coma memory, lucid dreaming, meditation, hypnosis, cognitive trance, and virtual reality. She is assistant specialty chief editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, associate editor of Clinical Neurophysiology, consulting editor for the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, and on the editorial board of Scientific Reports. She co-edited the book “Neurology of Consciousness” (Elsevier, 2015, 2nd ed.), and organizes several conferences (World Coma Day, Human Brain Project conference on consciousness). She has more than 150 publications in international peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Lancet, Lancet Neurology, Annals of Neurology and Nature Communications, and numerous invited talks at international conferences. Her aim is to improve the care of patients who recover from coma, contribute to the understanding of human consciousness, and promote education and public awareness of this fascinating clinical and research topic.

We greatly appreciate the efforts of Drs. Edlow and Gosseries, as well as all of the contributing authors, for their wonderful work in this issue of Seminars on Disorders of Consciousness. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that this is one of the most outstanding issues we have ever put forth during my time as Editor-in-Chief for Seminars in Neurology, with in-depth and expert reviews which are likely to reverberate far into the scientific and clinical communities. I also take personal satisfaction in seeing Dr. Edlow, one of my former mentees, becoming such a world authority on this subject, and although I did not know Dr. Gosseries prior to this collaboration, I could not be more impressed with her vast knowledge and insights to the field. These are truly two deep thinkers who are changing how we view coma and disorders of consciousness! They have put together a simply exceptional issue, and their diligence and dedication to this issue as Guest Editors is truly unparalleled. We hope you enjoy this superb issue!

Publication History

Article published online:
13 September 2022