Some People in Vegetative State Actually Conscious

A study of brain activity in severely incapacitated patients suggests that not all of them are unresponsive.

Medical Researchers at the University of Western Ontario have determined that some people in a persistent vegetative state are in fact conscious and can respond to communication. Dr. Adrian Owen and a research team placed 16 patients in vegetative states in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, or fMRI, to study their brain activity. When the patients were asked to wiggle their toes or fingers, brain activity monitored in three of the patients suggested that they were aware that they were being spoken to and attempted to move their digits. The findings could overturn the long-held assumption that people in vegetative states are entirely unresponsive and clinically "unconscious" despite having occasional periods of wakefulness. The team was also able to determine this by using portable electroencephalography (EEG) devices, which only cost a fraction of MRI machines and could thus be used far more easily to determine the brain activity of people unable to physically show it.