Breakthrough for coma woman
Published: September 12, 2006
A WOMAN in a vegetative state was able to understand spoken instructions, Cambridge researchers found.
Scans show activity in her brain no different from that of healthy volunteers asked to imagine a game of tennis.
The astounding result suggests that, despite her condition, the 23-year-old patient can understand spoken instructions and respond through her thoughts.
The unnamed woman suffered severe brain damage in a road accident a year ago.
After spending five months in a coma, she fell into a persistent vegetative state (PVS). PVS patients are generally assumed to be unconscious and unaware, even though their eyes may be open.
A scanner was used to map the woman’s brain activity while she was asked to imagine playing tennis, or moving around her home.
The researchers at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in Cambridge found she responded as if she understood what she was being told. Different parts of her brain “lit up” just as they did when healthy volunteers were given the same instructions.
Study leader Adrian Owen, from the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, said: “These are startling results. They confirm that, despite the diagnosis of a vegetative state, this patient retained the ability to understand spoken commands and to respond to them through her brain activity, rather than through speech and movement.”
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