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Human Vegetative State

Vegetative patients 'still learn'

Patients with severe brain damage who do not appear to have signs of consciousness still seem able to learn, a study suggests. Ref. Source 6

State Vegetative Human

Scan unlocks vegetative patients

Scientists have been able to reach into the mind of a brain-damaged man and communicate with his thoughts. Ref. Source 1

Human Vegetative State Health & Special Psychology

Study Finds Patients Thought to be in "Vegetative State" Have Active Brain Activity

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- A new study finds that patients who are supposedly in a "vegetative state" have active brain activity. The study includes one patient who was able to respond to basic questions with affirmative yes and no answers despite having the dehumanizing term applied to his medical condition.

The new report is posted in the New England Journal of Medicine and researchers in Britain and Belgium studied 54 patients in a state of unconsciousness.

Some 23 of the patients were in a so-called PVS state while the rest were listed as minimally conscious.

In a 2006 version of the study with the same patients, one patient showed her brain was responding when asked questions about imaging various activities such as playing tennis or remembering her home. Those got the right areas of the brain functioning when she thought about them.

In the new experiment, three other patients showed similar brain activity when asked similar questions. In one man they asked him to think of two different things -- tennis and his home -- as a way to answer yes or no by showing the appropriate brain activity in response to questions.

"We asked basic biographical questions, like "Is your father's name Thomas?" and "Have you ever been to the United States?"" Adrian M. Owen, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, who developed the method and was a co-author of the paper, said. "We then checked whether the answers were correct. They were." Ref. Source 6

State Vegetative Human

Patient in "Persistent Vegetative State" Communicates "I"m Not in Pain"

These stories are worth keeping in mind: In Canada, a patient thought unconscious for ten years was found able to communicate using sophisticated brain scans. Ref. Source 2

State Vegetative Human

Brain damaged, not brain dead

A VEGETATIVE patient who has been uncommunicative for more than a decade, has told doctors he is not in pain. Ref. Source 1

Human Vegetative State

Despite some people being in such a bad state, their brain can still work as it tries to make up for the damage that has occurred. It's amazing on how our brain works despite our situations in life. Hopefully later on in the future scientists can figure out how to remove the state of vegetation in a human being through technology.