Very similar to RadioLab’s story-most-likely-to-make-you-cry, “Finding Emilie”, Cambridge’s Dr. Srivas Chennu and his team from around the world have discovered something interesting about so-called ‘vegetative’ patients.
Some of them can hear, understand, and respond to: Exactly what you’re saying to them.
They are ‘locked-in’ but definitely still ‘there’.
Now, the EEG+fMRI results weren’t the same for the majority of the subjects tested, and not all of the 4 big-responders reacted the same way.
-As a matter-of-fact, only 1 of the subjects could respond to commands to imagine or visualize a certain thing or action.
Nevertheless, it’s still an interesting and hopeful point on the long road to helping, and eventually “unlocking” people, in what has maybe unfairly been called a ‘vegetative’ state, before any plugs are unnecessarily pulled.
More Details at the Links:
Photo Credits:
“Peaceful Lion Evening Rest”, by Chad Littlejohn, toomanychads.wix.com
Links:
• Source: University of Cambridge
• via: WashingtonPost
• More Coverage: BBC | GoogleTranslate-Infirmiers Post on the book, “A Tear Saved My Life”, by Angèle Lieby | MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences
• Source Study: ScienceDirect-Dissociable endogenous and exogenous attention in disorders of consciousness
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