Patients who lose consciousness for more than a year are considered extremely unlikely to regain it, but a 35-year-old Frenchman who had been in a vegetative state for 15 years has shown hints of awareness after having key brain regions electrically stimulated, scientists reported on Monday.
The patient was able to follow an object with his eyes, turn his head when asked to, and widened his eyes in surprise when a researcher’s head came close to his face — none of which he did in a vegetative state. Although he is far from recovered, and although hopeful results in one patient don’t mean the technique will work for others, the study adds to evidence that there might be a way to restore consciousness to some patients — even years later.
The new report shows that even in a very low functioning brain “a shift in observable behaviors from none, a vegetative state, to some limited ones — a minimally conscious state — can occur,” said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medical College who was not involve in the current case. He led a 2007 study in which a minimally conscious patient (a person who shows occasional intention, attention, awareness, and responsiveness) improved somewhat with deep brain stimulation of the thalamus..