“Detecting covert consciousness in the vegetative state”
Amber Kocher
9/9/2011
A psychologist named from the University of Western Ontario did a study on coma patients that were in a vegetative state. He discovered that some patients that are considered brain dead and minimally conscious were actually capable of brain activity and can be conscious and aware of their surroundings. They used fMRI’s to measure brain activity when the patients were reacting to stimuli. The early study asked a woman to imagine playing tennis and walking around in her house. The brain activity measured by the test showed that the correct parts in her brain were responding the way a healthy conscious person would. A later study was done which used the similar thought. Imagining playing tennis was yes, and walking on a familiar street was no. These to thought processes have different response areas in the brain, so they were able to communicate with these patients and get simple associations. Owen’s group consisted of 54 vegetative patients, and he did the yes/no study. Out of all 54, 5 were capable of answering the questions. These patients had been labeled brain dead before the study.
This study is amazing in itself, seeing as coma patients and minimally conscious people can’t really have a lot of testing or experimenting. Most is relatively unknown about these conditions, and the extent of the brain activity can’t really be measured. This article talks about a breakthrough that can help families with tough decisions, and can also be an indicator of the likelihood of recovery. For most countries with any sort of modern medicine, this will make a difference. I know that there is still so much about the brain that is relatively unknown and anything that helps break through the barriers to gain more knowledge for science and medical reasons is a good thing for the world.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/neurophilosophy/2011/sep/02/detecting-covert-consciousness-vegetative-statee
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