'Vegetative' patient communicates | Hacker News Reader

'Vegetative' patient communicates

bbc.co.uk

47 pointsequilibrium16 comments

Having seen this type of story debunked before, I feel the quotes in the post title should be around the word "communicates".

I'm not sure how conclusive the evidence is based on the article.

At least this time its brain scans rather than a hopeful relative interpreting twitches or eye movements.

It shows more promise, but I have no idea how they manage to get from brain scans to (quoting the article headline) "[patient] says 'I'm not in pain'".

I have a friend who works at the research institute beside the university hospital, and he told me they basically ask a set of questions, while taking a series of measurements via the fMRI machine. They then compare the expected responses with the output from the brain scanner, and can match up the blood flow rates in different parts of the brain with a "positive" or "negative" response. They then perform the inquiries multiple times, until they have a high degree of probability that the questions were answered in a consistent manner.

It is theoretically possible, but this area has a huge problem wihbfalse positives and artificial signal boosting. An MRI can read brain activity from a dead fish bought at the market.

*An MRI can read brain activity from a dead fish bought at the market.

not sure if that is humour or real? If real that's really interesting. Redefines the idea of a dead fish really.

To add to Breakthrough's answer, the article states:

"The patients were repeatedly asked to imagine playing tennis or walking around their home. In healthy volunteers each produces a distinct pattern of activity, in the premotor cortex for the first task and the parahippocampal gyrus for the second. It allowed the researchers to put a series of yes or no questions to severely brain-injured patients. A minority were able to answer by using the power of thought."

So, I imagine they could say "To answer YES, imagine playing tennis. To answer NO, imagine walking around your home". Then they could ask yes/no questions and monitor the patterns of brain activity.

Well, we'll have to see the paper to know more.

For an example of one of the classic kinds of "debunking" that this kind of research tends to get, see "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons correction" ( http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf, PDF)

I really hope you're right. The idea that someone in that sort of condition, apparently beyond further harm, could actually have been conscious for all those years, makes the average horror story look optimistic.

We don't know that such a person couldn't eventually enter an inner world where they find a kind of peace and fulfillment. It doesn't necessarily have to be a continual conscious horror of being frozen in a hospital bed.

I've read some of the literature on sensory deprivation experiments, and... let's just say you are more of an optimist than I am.

What if they learn to meditate like a monk? Certainly there are people who can enter altered states of consciousness for extended periods who could perhaps tune out the torturous effects of any sensory deprivation.

But the British neuroscientist Prof Adrian Owen - who led the team at the Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario - said Mr Routley was clearly not vegetative.

This article is just another piece of science-sensationalism from the BBC.

You're implying that the headline talks about a vegetative patient but the article has an expert saying the patient isn't really vegetative?

Not fair. What the article alleges is that Scott Routley's state (1) would have been classed as "vegetative" according to previously standard criteria but (2) is shown not to be by the new MRI-based approach that Prof Owen's team is using.

In other words: that meeting the current diagnostic standards for vegetativeness (or whatever the right noun is) is, according to new work, consistent with being conscuious, self-aware and capable of communication given the right equipment.

If that's true, then the article isn't sensationalistic at all.

Of course it might not be true -- but if you want to convince readers that it's likely not to be, you'd better give some evidence that actually addresses the point, which your out-of-context quotation doesn't.

A more correct headline might have said, "Previously considered vegetative patient shows apparent consciousness"

That is what the headline says, in fewer words.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com