15 years in vegetative slumber, man stirs after brain stimulation

brain

Patients who lose consciousness for more than a year are considered extremely unlikely to regain it, but a 35-year-old Frenchman who had been in a vegetative state for 15 years has shown hints of awareness after having key brain regions electrically stimulated, scientists reported on [September 25]. The patient was able to follow an object with his eyes, turn his head when asked to, and widened his eyes in surprise when a researcher’s head came close to his face — none of which he did in a vegetative state.

He became minimally conscious, responding to some signals from the outside world, after a month of having his vagus nerve — which runs from the abdomen to the brain, where it has numerous connections to regions that the researchers call “a hot zone for conscious awareness” — stimulated with a device implanted in his chest.

Brain recordings offered additional evidence that something significant had changed, however. The man had stronger brainwaves called a theta signal, which is absent in the vegetative state but present with minimal consciousness.

[Lead researcher Angela] Sirigu is confident the man did not go from a vegetative state to minimal consciousness spontaneously. His partial recovery coincided with the vagus stimulation, and after 15 years it seemed unlikely his improvement was due to anything else.

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Brain Stimulation Partly Awakens Patient after 15 Years in Vegetative State

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