Patient In Vegetative State Communicates Through Brain Scanner

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coma1 Patient In Vegetative State Communicates Through Brain Scanner London, Feb 10, (PRINTWORDS NEWS) A man in a vegetative state for the last five years has been able to convey his thoughts to doctors with the help of a new brain mapping technique. In a research that was carried out by doctors of UK and Belgium, a team of doctors used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to scan the brain of a 29 year old man who went into a deeply unconscious state after sustaining major head injuries in a car accident five years back. The finding is being considered to be a significant breakthrough as it is expected to have pivotal implications in the care and treatment of patients diagnosed in a vegetative state.

The study which was published in the online version of New England Journal of Medicine recently, has revealed that the patient was able to communicate “yes” and “no” just be using his thoughts despite the fact that he was not capable of showing any signs of outward consciousness all these years. At the same time, the researchers also examined few healthy individuals who were asked to imagine playing tennis or wandering around in order to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ respectively. This gave the doctors an idea about the active regions of their brains while responding to the questions. However, the researchers were left amazed when they found that the vegetative patient was also capable of correctly responding to a series of questions using the same scanning methods. The findings of the study highlighted the fact that by changing the activity of his brain, the man could communicate his answer. However, it has also been stated that all patients in deeply unconscious state cannot use the brain mapping technique to reveal their thoughts as out of the 54 patients who were tested in the study, only five patients were capable of showing brain activity while the 29 year old patient was the only one who was able to communicate with the help of his thoughts.
brain Patient In Vegetative State Communicates Through Brain Scanner
Adrian Owen, co-author of the study said, “Not only did these scans tell us that the patient was not in a vegetative state but, more importantly, for the first time in five years it provided the patient with a way of communicating his thoughts to the outside world.” The study indicates that with the new brain scanning method, signs of awareness can be detected in the vegetative patients, who were earlier presumed to be completely cut off from the outside world. Nicholas Schiff, a New York based neurologist described the revelations of the study as “game changer” that could “have a profound impact across medicine.”

Meanwhile, the findings of the study is also expected to have profound ethical implications such as allowing patients in permanently vegetative state to die by taking their consent and subsequently withdrawing treatment. However, the fact that the study has the potential to herald a new era in the treatment as well as facilitate better understanding of patients in deeply unconscious state cannot be denied.

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