Brains of vegetative patients show life
I don't know what is scarier: the fact that we might have been pulling the cord on vegetative people that weren't really vegetative, or the idea of being cognitive but completely trapped inside your own body.
Of 54 unresponsive patients whose brains were scanned at medical centers in England and Belgium, those five appeared able, when prompted by researchers, to imagine themselves playing tennis, and four of them demonstrated the ability to imagine themselves walking through the rooms of their homes.
One of those patients -- a 22-year-old man who had been unresponsive for five years after an automobile crash -- went on to respond to a series of simple questions with brain activity that clearly indicated yes or no answers, researchers said.
Brains of vegetative patients show life
9 February 2010 08:48pm UTC • 107 views • 1 comment
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1 comment
The Anonymous Poppy
11 February 2010 03:00am UTC
I didn't click through to the article yet, but your quote made me wonder: how many non-vegetative brains would be unable to imagine themselves playing tennis, or walking through the rooms of their home? Say, if that person had never played tennis, or had something else (perhaps something unrelated) wrong with the imagining-stuff part of their brain.