Canadian patient in "vegetative state" able to communicate

[schteve_d]

I thought this was pretty darn cool!

Scientists working at the Brain and Mind Institute at Universty of Western Ontario found that 39-year-old Scott Routley - who suffered a brain injury during a car crash 12 years ago - was able to answer yes or no to questions by either thinking about playing tennis or walking around his home....

Full story here.

[Thor]

I hope the next question is, "Do you want to continue living like this?"

[Hemi-Cuda]

i guess that's supposed to be good news, but i find it horrible. it's one thing to be a vegetable and have no conscious thought, but imagine being trapped in a state like that with a fully functional mind. i would go insane

[morgin]

This is interesting but don't read into it with too much emotion.

There is a big difference from a brain being able to "answer" in the sense they can pick up waves in reply to a question that shows some semblance of response to yes/no, vs full out "oh crap oh crap im trapped in my own brain". Brain injuries are complicated. This doesn't mean the dude is engaged in constant inner monologue without being able to express it physically (true "locked in"). It will be interesting to see what comes of it, but there is a huge expanse of middle ground between seeing brain activity in reply to questions and having full cognotive abilities without the means to express anything.

Edit: Just to show I actually read the article, the part I take issue with is

“Scott has been able to show he has a conscious, thinking mind. We have scanned him several times and his pattern of brain activity shows he is clearly choosing to answer our questions. We believe he knows who and where he is,” he told the BBC.

Wait until the actual research is published. There have been a few cases of patients "answering" questions that turned out to not really be that at all.

[Jacks]

Pretty crazy if he does have conscious thought.

While reading that I couldn't help thinking of this.

[Jimmy Stang]

If anyone has access to BBC iPlayer (if you subscribe to a VPN or DNS service that lets you view foreign content), the documentary program is called "Panorama", it just aired an hour or two ago, and it will be available on iPlayer shortly.

I'm sure that it will make its way to a Canadian documentary program like The Passionate Eye eventually.

[schteve_d]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

i guess that's supposed to be good news, but i find it horrible. it's one thing to be a vegetable and have no conscious thought, but imagine being trapped in a state like that with a fully functional mind. i would go insane

Would be just slightly worse than being buried alive!

Originally Posted by Jacks

Pretty crazy if he does have conscious thought.

While reading that I couldn't help thinking of this.

The book that the video was based on was pretty cool.
That was what I thought of first too.