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Nearly comatose patients have
more thoughts than we knew, study suggests
Feb. 9, 2005
Special to World Science
Certain nearly comatose patients may have more awareness than their almost total lack of responsiveness to outside signals would suggest, a new study has found.
The study examined patients in a so-called minimally conscious state, or MCS. These are people who because of severely brain damage can’t interact with others, beyond sometimes following simple commands, such as requests to blink their eyes or raise a hand.
Even that they do inconsistently.
In the small study, using a type of brain scanning technology called functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), researchers played tapes of personal stories for two of these patients. They also played them the same tapes backwards.
The patients demonstrated wide-ranging and complex patterns of brain activity in response to the forward narratives, but not the backward ones, according to the researchers, from Columbia University in New York City and several other schools.
The findings, published in the Feb. 8 issue of the research journal Neurology, followed a similar study published in the same journal’s Sept. 14 issue. In that one, researchers with the University of Liege, Belgium, conducted a different type of brain scan called Positron Emission Tomography on one patient with this condition. Tapes of infant cries and the patient’s own name produced much more brain activity than meaningless noise, the study found.
The activation found in the Columbia study included language areas of the brain, and was remarkably similar to
that seen in healthy people undergoing the same tests, the authors said.
“These findings of active cortical [brain] networks that serve language functions suggest that some MCS patients may retain widely distributed cortical systems with potential for cognitive and sensory function,” the researchers wrote.
This suggests that the patients are having more complex internal experiences and thoughts than their outward actions would indicate, and that they
may be easier to treat than was once thought, the paper added.
—EJL
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