Julian Nowogrodzki in Nature:
At least one-quarter of people who have severe brain injuries and cannot respond physically to commands are actually conscious, according to the first international study of its kind1. Although these people could not, say, give a thumbs-up when prompted, they nevertheless repeatedly showed brain activity when asked to imagine themselves moving or exercising. “This is one of the very big landmark studies” in the field of coma and other consciousness disorders, says Daniel Kondziella, a neurologist at Rigshospitalet, the teaching hospital for Copenhagen University.
The results mean that a substantial number of people with brain injuries who seem unresponsive can hear things going on around them and might even be able to use brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) to communicate, says study leader Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. BCIs are devices implanted into a person’s head that capture brain activity, decode it and translate it into commands that can, for instance, move a computer cursor. “We should be allocating resources to go out and find these people and help them,” Schiff says.
More here.
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