It has long been thought that patients who are in a vegetative state (often due to traumatic brain injury) are unaware of either their surroundings or themselves. However, a new study has revealed, through functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI), that some patients may have emotional reactions to images of their loved ones. (Sharon et al., 2013).
They react emotionally to their loved ones
To carry out this study, showed photographs (of strange and familiar people) to four patients who were in persistent vegetative state (TEUs). To find out the effect these images had on the patients, brain scans were used to record their brain activity. Once the records were obtained, the results were compared with those of a healthy control group.
What was the results? Brain scans revealed that two of the four patients in PVS had emotional awareness.
In one of the patients, a 60-year-old woman who had been hit by a car, the scan showed that there was brain activity in the emotional and facial processing areas when viewing photos of loved ones. In addition, similar brain activity was also observed when he was asked to imagine his parents' faces.
«This experiment, the first of its kind, shows that some patients in a vegetative state not only have emotional awareness to environmental stimuli, but also to internal processes, such as those generated when viewing images. » Says Haggai Sharon, the first author of this study.
The two patients who showed emotional awareness in the study regained consciousness two months later; not remembering anything about when they were unconscious.
It is possible that this emotional awareness test can give a clue about the prognosis of patients; and even assist in the creation of therapies for people in a persistent vegetative state.