Brain Images of Woman in Vegetative State Hint at Awareness
By Thomas H. Maugh II and Karen Kaplan, Times Staff Writers
September 8, 2006
Sophisticated brain-imaging techniques suggest that a young woman in a vegetative state five months after a traffic accident had some mental functioning, even though she was unable to physically respond to her environment, British researchers report today.
The woman's brain showed mental activity virtually identical to that of healthy people when she was addressed in complex sentences and when told to imagine activities such as playing tennis, the physicians reported in the journal Science.
The findings challenge the standard diagnosis of a vegetative state, implying that some patients may have what Dr. Lionel Naccache of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research called "a rich mental life" in an accompanying editorial.
