Have you ever had a dream in which you were frozen in place, aware of what was going on around you but unable to speak or act? That may be, a report in today’s New York Times informs us, the normal experience of thousands of individuals suffering brain damage. They cannot communicate with the outside world, so the world thinks that they are mental vegetables. The world, it seems, is jumping to the wrong conclusions.
In the study, a team of neuroscientists in New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., used imaging technology to compare brain activity in two young men determined to be minimally conscious with that of seven healthy men and women. In a measure of overall brain activity, the two groups were vastly different: the two minimally conscious men showed less than half the activity of the others.
But the researchers also recorded an audiotape for each of the nine subjects in which a relative or loved one reminisced, telling familiar stories and recalling shared experiences. In each of the brain-damaged patients, the sound of the voice prompted a pattern of brain activity similar to that of the healthy participants.
“We assumed we would get some minimal response in these patients, but nothing like this,” said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, an assistant professor of neurology and neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College in Manhattan and the study’s lead author. The two men showed near-normal patterns in the language-processing areas of their brains, Dr. Schiff said, suggesting that some neural networks “could be perfectly preserved under some conditions.”
Although the number of patients studied was very small, the specificity and intricacy of the patterns made it all but impossible that the results were a fluke, said Dr. Joy Hirsch, director of the Functional MRI Research Center at Columbia University Medical Center and the study's seniorauthor. . . .
Since the study was completed, Dr. Hirsch said, the team has run the same kinds of tests on seven similar brain-injury patients, with similar results: the language processing networks in their brains display seemingly normal patterns upon their hearing the voice of a lovedone. . . .
“The most consequential thing about this is that we have opened a door, we have found an objective voice for these patients, which tells us they have some cognitive ability in a way they cannot tell us themselves,” Dr. Hirsch said. The patients are, she added, “more human than we imagined in the past, and it is unconscionable not to aggressively pursue research efforts to evaluate them and develop therapeutic techniques.”
To be frank, some of us always thought that unconscious people remained fully human. We have wondered at the widespread reluctance to consider the possibility that people who lose some brain functions may retain the ability to think. Let’s hope that Dr. Schiff and Hirsch’s research induces deeper thinking among those who are so eager to starve and dehydrate unfortunates who can’t speak up in their own defense.
my dad has been in persistent vegetative state since mar. 23, 2006. he had cardiopulmonary arrest following cerebral hypoxia. he was in coma for 10 days. the pvs followed and still continues. all his vitals signs and lab tests showed that everthing is normal. the doctors said that we are just waiting for him to regain consciousness, which he will do on his own time.
although he's in pvs, he communicates his discomfort when his diaper is wet by continuously spitting. furthermore, he responds to the voice of my mom. he follows her commands constantly although it takes a lot of repeatition.
please help us pray for him.
Posted by: ria saua | Friday, August 11, 2006 at 04:54 AM