WASHINGTON - A car crash severely injured the woman’s brain, leaving her in a vegetative state. But British scientists found startling signs of awareness when they peered deeper into her brain: She seemed to hear and follow — mentally — certain commands.I truly hope that this pans out. I really do.
This novel brain-scanning experiment, reported Thursday, is sure to elicit pleas from families desperate to know if loved ones deemed beyond medical help have brain activity that doctors didn’t suspect.
It’s far too soon to raise those hopes, the British researchers and U.S. doctors stress. There’s no way to know if this woman ever will recover, and therefore if her brain activity means anything medically. Nor can many hospitals perform this type of brain imaging.
Unfortunately it raises some interesting moral dilemmas. For one, if it is found that all vegetative cases (or even most) have brain function that can be classified as coherent thought how will we treat our current patients? Will it be considered ethically wrong to pull the plug? Would we have to continue watching our loved ones be trapped behind their skulls able to think but unable to respond? Some think its morally wrong to pull the plug in any circumstance while others feel it wrong to let their loved ones suffer. This should increase the debate.
On a side note I must say I've been hearing a lot about the "use of only 10% of our brians" myth lately and I felt I should say something. I've added links below to some articles on the subject.
Links
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Scan detects brain activity in vegetative patient
Do We Use Only 10% of Our Brain?
The Ten-Percent Myth
Myths About the Brain: 10 percent and Counting
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