Vegetative Patients Talk With Brain

Vegetative Patients Talk With Brain:

"A few patients who appear to be in a persistent vegetative state may in fact be aware of themselves and their surroundings.

Remarkably, such patients may be able to learn to 'speak' using only their brains, suggest findings by Martin M. Monti, PhD, of the UK Medical Research Council, and colleagues.

'If someone can produce a mental state on command, it is like having a language,' Monti tells WebMD. 'We had 23 apparently vegetative patients, and four were really aware -- as we could tell by MRI [brain scans]."