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Drug Found to Aid Vegetative Patients
Oxygen99 writes "BBC News is reporting on some amazing effects of a drug called Zolpidem on patients suffering from persistent vegetative state. Apparently the drug, usually used to treat insomnia, activates dormant areas of the brain that can make patients aware of their surroundings and even hold conversations. This raises several interesting points including the diagnosis of PVS and the attendant ethics of the associated life support, as well as the way the brain responds to injury and damage."
According to the autopsy, this drug would have had to have done a lot more than described here. Maybe if they'd given it to her when she first fell into a coma (we'll never know) but by the time she died, her brain was irreperable.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I seem to recall that her autopsy found what was essentially mush where her neocortex would be. I would tend to guess that that kind of damage really is irreparable - but IANANeurologist, so I don't know for sure.
Assuming we could fully repair braindeath (ie, restore the brain when higher functions have been lost), what would remain of the original person? Would we have an adult with infantile brain capabilities, a blank slate? How much of a person's identity is hardcoded? And what are the ethics of the situation - do we revive someone knowing that we'd be making them start over from scratch (and maybe not even that - most of early learning is made possible by infantile brain "plasticity", which an adult brain lacks).
It's not an easy question...
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
For those that didn't bother to read the medical reports and instead relied on the newspapers/media, Terri's brain had totally atrophied away, it was gone. Her skull contained the brain stem, a bit of shrivelled brain and an awful lot of fluid. There really was no hope, she was long gone.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
The study investigates the effect of zolpidem (CAS 82626-48-0) on brain injuries and cerebellar diaschisis. Four patients with varied brain injuries, three of them with cerebellar diaschisis, were imaged by 99mTc HMPAO Brain SPECT before and after application of zolpidem. The baseline SPECT before zolpidem showed poor tracer uptake in brain injury areas and cerebellar diaschisis. After zolpidem, cerebral perfusion through brain injury areas improved substantially in three patients and the cerebellar diaschisis was reversed. Observations point to a GABA based phenomenon that occurs in brain injury and diaschisis that is reversible by zolpidem.
The problem with this study is a small sample group and no control. You can't make many broad conclusions from that data.
Indications, efficacy and tolerance of drug therapy in view of improving recovery of consciousness following a traumatic brain injury
All of the drugs described in the above study have dopaminergic function; either indirectly increasing dopamine levels (amantadin, amphetamine, and methylphenidate) or directly agonizing the receptors (bromocriptine). It is interesting that GABA, an inhibitory rather than excitatory neurotransmitter in most cases, shows efficacy here as well.