This volume provides a guide to recent developments in research on pain perception and assessment, and the detection of consciousness and communication in patients with disorders of consciousness. It will be an invaluable guide for clinicians, medics and therapists working in rehabilitation and acute care, and also useful for students and researchers in neuropsychology and medical sciences.

1.Introduction to the challenge of pain and communication in disorders of consciousness, Camille Chatelle, Steven Laureys, Caroline Schnakers 2. The cortical processing of pain, André Mouraux 3. Behavioral assessment of pain in disorders of consciousness: clinical and ethical issues, Nathan D. Zasler, Anne T. O'Brien, and Caroline Schnakers 4. Overcoming the challenges of accurately assessing consciousness and communication in the context of pain assessment, John Whyte, & Mark Sherer 5. Using paraclinical assessments to detect consciousness and communicate with severely brain-injured patients, Camille Chatelle and Damien Lesenfants 6. Brain- Computer- Interface (BCI) Communication in the Locked- In: A Tool for Differential Diagnosis, Ujwal Chaudhary, Francesco Piccione and Niels Birbaumer 7. Disorders of Consciousness in an Evolving Neuroscience Context, Graham Wilson and Eric Racine 8. Conclusion and future perspectives, Camille Chatelle and Steven Laureys

Camille Chatelle is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Neurorehabilitation Laboratory, Harvard Medical School, USA. She is also working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory for NeuroImaging of Coma and Consciousness, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA.

Steven Laureys leads the Coma Science Group at the Cyclotron Research Center and Department of Neurology, Sart Tilman Liège University Hospital, Belgium. He is Clinical Professor and Research Director at the Belgian National Fund of Scientific Research (FNRS).