Patient in Vegetative State Not Just Aware but Actually Paying Attention

Scientists at the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit and the University of Cambridge just published "Dissociable Endogenous and Exogenous Attention in Disorders of Consciousness" in Neuroimage: Clinical.



A patient in a seemingly vegetative state, unable to move or speak, showed signs of attentive awareness. The patient was able to focus on words signaled by the experimenters as auditory targets just as successfully as healthy individuals. 



The lead author explained that the team found both the patient had the ability to pay attention as well as  independent evidence of their ability to follow commands.  "In order to try and assess the true level of brain function and awareness that survives in the vegetative and minimally conscious states, we are progressively building up a fuller picture of the sensory, perceptual and cognitive abilities in patients. This study has added a key piece to that puzzle, and provided a tremendous amount of insight into the ability of these patients to pay attention."