Surgery to embed a nerve-stimulating implant in a patient in a persistent vegetative state (15 years), resulted in the patient reverting to a "minimally conscious" state.
After lying in a vegetative state for 15 years, a 35-year-old male patient in France appears to have regained minimal consciousness following months of vagus nerve stimulation, researchers report today in Current Biology.
The patient, who suffered severe brain damage in a car crash, had shown no signs of awareness or improvement before. He made no apparent purposeful movements and didn't respond to doctors or family at his bedside. But after researchers surgically implanted a device that stimulates the vagus nerve, quiet areas of his brain began to perk up—as did he.
His eyes turned toward people talking and could follow a moving mirror. He turned his head to follow a speaker moving around his bed. He slowly shook his head when asked. When researchers suddenly drew very close to his face, his eyes widened as if he was surprised or scared. When caregivers played his favorite music, he smiled and shed a tear.
Note that "respond" is on the level of "turning his head when asked, though that took a minute."
A few thoughts on this:
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday September 26 2017, @03:29PM (1 child)
We can and have beat Slashdot to stories. It just doesn't happen often since we get less submissions and space them out longer (typically 90 minutes instead of 45 minutes)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @12:18AM
I like that our stories are later as we sometimes have better details by then.