Study finds response
despite brain injury,
vegetative states

According to reports in The Washington Post, a team of scientists decided to do an unprecedented experiment on a young woman who was in a deep in a "vegetative state" -- completely unresponsive and unaware of her surroundings. The purpose of the test was to try to peer behind the veil of her brain injury for any signs of conscious awareness.

Without any hint that she might have a sense what was happening, the researchers put the woman in a scanner that detects brain activity. They told her that in a few minutes they would say the word "tennis," signaling her to imagine she was serving, volleying and chasing down balls.

When they did, the neurologists were shocked to see her brain "light up" exactly like an uninjured person's would. It happened again and again. The doctors got the same result when they repeatedly cued her to picture herself wandering, room to room, through her own home.

"I was absolutely stunned," said Adrian Owen, a British neurologist who led the team reporting the case in the journal Science. "We had no idea whether she would understand our instructions. But this showed that she is aware."

While cautioning that the study involved just one patient who had been in a vegetative state for a relatively short time, the researchers said the findings indicate such techniques could help determine whether other patients with major brain injuries might have held on to some level of consciousness.

The findings raise questions of whether some brain-injury patients might be more responsive than anyone realized.

And scientists have long known that some patients in a vegetative state sometimes regain some awareness, and that those who had traumatic blows to the head generally have better prospects than those whose brains were oxygen-deprived because their hearts stopped.

This 23-year-old patient, whose name and other personal details were withheld, suffered a head trauma in a July 2005 traffic accident that left her in a coma. After about two weeks, she opened her eyes and started going through cycles of being asleep and awake.

About 25,000 Americans are estimated to be in a vegetative state.