Two patients in coma after cardio-pulmonary arrest showed bilateral absence of all brain-stem auditory evoked potentials contrasting with normal brain-stem reflexes and normal somatosensory cortical evoked potentials. In both patients pre-existing dysfunction of peripheral auditory structures could be ruled out. Subsequent neuropathological analysis showed that the anoxic-ischaemic lesions were restricted to Sommer's sector and the Purkinje cells. These unusual data suggest the hypothesis that a severe hypoxic-ischaemic insult may impair cochlear function and interfere with the activation of the intact auditory pathways.