A team of researchers from Britain and Belgium has proven that it is possible to establish contact with patients who are in a vegetative state and suffer from serious brain damage. It turned out that people who are in a state of the so-called waking coma can perceive reality
The vegetative state of a person is characterized by various injuries and partial dysfunction of the cerebral hemispheres. Patients who find themselves in such a situation are completely indifferent to everything that happens to them, but they can still breathe, demonstrate motor reflexes and eat. Previously, it was believed that people in a state of waking coma cannot adequately perceive reality. Their organism is alive, but their consciousness is dead. European scientists have managed to prove that this is not the case.
A team of researchers from Belgium and Britain has developed a unique device called an EEG that can read brain activity. EEG is an abbreviation for electroencephalography, which is the name of the technology behind the new invention. The principle of the EEG is that several portable encephalographs are connected to the patient's head, which quickly enough produce a brain scan and display information on the screen. It is much cheaper and much easier to use than previously used human brain scanning technologies.
Using an EEG scan, scientists were able to establish two-way communication with 16 patients from a Cambridge hospital in Britain and a Belgian hospital in Liege. Scientists have asked patients who have fallen into a vegetative state with a request to imagine that they are squeezing their fingers and toes. As shown by EEG tests, in response to the request of the researchers, the parts of the brain of the patients responsible for motor skills began to show specific activity.
In addition, the patients responded unmistakably to some of the simplest questions that required answers “yes” or “no.” The researchers say that the results of their EEG tests are just the beginning, and soon doctors will be able to conduct more complex dialogues with patients, which for several years back were considered permanently unconscious.
