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 Grishnakh on Wednesday September 27 2017, @03:19AM
No, for my wisdom teeth I was under full anaesthesia. It was apparently quite a process getting them out.
And as I said, I've had a couple other, much more recent surgeries, with full anesthesia (propofol I think was one of the drugs used). It just wasn't a big deal. I just came to, and was fully conscious and alert pretty soon afterwards. And I didn't need any of the opioid painkillers they gave me by default either, despite an incision a couple inches long.