Le jeudi 26 mars 2026, Madame Marie VITELLO, titulaire d'un Master en Sciences Psychologiques, à finalité spécialisée en psychologie clinique etd’un Certificat de formation à la recherche en sciences médicales, présentera l'examen en vue de l'obtention du grade de Doctorat en sciences médicales, sous la direction de Madame Aurore THIBAUT et de Madame Olivia GOSSERIES.

Cette épreuve consistera en la défense publique d'une thèse intitulée : "A Multimodal Approach to Non-Invasive Neural Stimulation for Severe Brain Injury". 

Le jury sera composé de :

Didier LEDOUX (Président), Géraldine MARTENS (Secrétaire), Jitka ANNEN, Riëm EL TAHRY (UCLouvain), Olivia GOSSERIES, Nicolas LEJEUNE, Stein SILVA (Purpan Univ. Hosp.), Fabio TACCONE (ULB), Aurore THIBAUT,

Résumé de la thèse

After a severe brain injury, some patients fail to regain normal awareness and remain in states such as coma, vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, or the minimally conscious state.  Although disorders of consciousness (DoC) are rare, patients with these conditions pose major medical, ethical and socio-economic challenges that far exceed their prevalence.  While recent advances in neuroimaging and neurophysiology have improved the understanding and diagnosis of consciousness disorders, effective treatments to promote recovery remain scarce.

This thesis investigates the potential of complementary non-invasive neural stimulation approaches as new therapeutic avenues for patients with DoC. The primary work reported in this thesis is a randomized controlled trial evaluating the clinical effects of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) in patients with severe brain injury admitted to the intensive care units. The study demonstrated that repeated non-invasive VNS sessions could safely accelerate recovery of consciousness in the sub-acute phase after the injury. Additional work introduces a comparative protocol assessing two distinct anatomical targets for magnetic stimulation, providing insights into the safety, feasibility, and therapeutic potential of this approach in chronic DoC.

The research reported in this thesis contributes to the development of multimodal, patient-tailored strategies and discusses their translational potential to improve the outcomes of patients recovering from severe brain injury.