- Some patients treated by electrical current were able to move their hands, others could answer simple questions
- Remarkable discovery could lead to new treatments for car crash victims
- Expert at University of Liege in Belgium studied 55 brain injury patients
By
Fiona Macrae
19:41 EST, 26 February 2014
|
06:00 EST, 27 February 2014
Â
Severely brain-damaged patients have been brought ‘back to life’ by zapping their brain with an electrical current
Severely brain damaged patients have been brought briefly ‘back to life’ by zapping their brain with an electrical current.
Awoken from their near-coma state, some were able to move their hands or follow instructions – others were able to answer simple questions.Â
The remarkable discovery could lead to new treatments for people left minimally conscious by car accidents or blows to the head.Â
It also raises the possibility that such patients will be able to tell doctors whether they want to live or die. They could also be asked whether they feel pain.Â
Researcher Steven Laureys, a coma scientist, said: ‘In some cases, members of your family can be left with difficult decisions about whether to remove life support.Â
‘And we can’t make any decisions ethically if we’re not sure about the diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic options.’
Dr Laureys, of the University of Liege in Belgium, treated 55 people with severe brain injuries. Â Â
Some were in a vegetative state, which meant they appeared awake but were unresponsive to the world around them.
Others were in a minimally conscious state, in which patients show fleeting signs of alertness but recovery is not guaranteed.
Some had been in the near coma-like conditions for years.
However, almost a third temporarily showed signs of consciousness after their brains were stimulated with a mild electric current for 20 minutes.
Dr Laureys told New Scientist magazine: ‘Two patients emerged from a minimally conscious state all together.’Â
When asked questions such as ‘Am I touching my nose?’, they were able to answer by nodding their head or making specific eye movements.
Others were able to follow instructions to nod or squeeze their hand.
Researchers at the University of Liege in Belgium studied the effect electrical currents had on 55 brain-injury patients
All of the effects wore off after about two hours but Dr Laureys is now investigating the effect of stimulating the brain for longer.Â
It is not entirely clear how the current helps but it may boost brain activity that underlies conscious tasks but has been suppressed.
Joseph Fins, a professor of medical ethics in the US, said: ‘It is like we are opening and shutting a window for a few hours and that could be perceived as cruel.Â
‘But we didn’t give these people brain damage, we are trying to make it better.
‘These kind of experiments show that a window exists and now you that that you might be able to use other interventions to enhance that window.’Â
New Scientist says: ‘This discovery has clear medical benefits: it should help doctors make better assessments of patients’ conditions.
‘The hope is that researchers will be able to extend the stimulation, resulting in more significant brain activity and even, perhaps, a return to something resembling an acceptable quality of life.Â
‘Before then, there is a host of ethical issues.
‘No one has yet asked the obvious ethical questions: are you suffering? Do you want to live, or die?’
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Pravda,
Atlantis, United Kingdom,
1 hour ago
I’ve got a mental image of jump leads being clipped on one’s ears…
Len,
East Sussex, United Kingdom,
5 hours ago
The last thing I would want when in my final death throws is to be “zapped back to lifeâ€, for pities sake just let people go when they are ready……
Daphne1,
Salford, United Kingdom,
40 minutes ago
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