Researchers used nerve stimulation technique on a 35-year-old man who has been in a vegetative state for the past 15 years, and noticed improvement in the level of consciousness in that person.
The patient selected for this study was incapacitated by a car accident 15 years ago, and showed no signs of improvement in the past so many years.
In this experimental study, researchers used a chest implant to send electric pulses to the vagus nerve. This nerve connects the brain to other major organs of the body and plays an important role in alertness, waking, and several other essential functions associated with brain. The technique is already used to cure patients with depression and epilepsy. Researchers observed significant improvements in brain activity, attention, and movement in the person after one month of vagal nerve stimulation. It was observed that the patient was responding to simple orders, such as turning his head or following an object with his eyes. He stayed awake when listening to his therapist read a book. His brain scans also revealed that there were improvements in brain areas involved in awareness, sensation and movement. The researchers described the patient moving from a vegetative state to a “state of minimal consciousness.”
“Brain plasticity and brain repair are still possible even when hope seems to have vanished,” said researcher Angela Sirigu of Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod in Lyon, France.
“It is possible to improve a patient’s presence in the world.”
Dr Tom Manly of Cambridge University’s MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, described the findings of this study as “potentially very exciting”.
“It is very important to take into account that the patient moved from a vegetative to a minimally conscious state. That is, consciousness remains severely altered but, in contrast to the vegetative state, there is minimal but definite behavioural evidence of self or environmental awareness,” he added.
Researchers are now planning to expand their work to other patients also.
The detailed findings of the study have been published in the US journal Current Biology.
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