Slashdot Mirror
Patient Revives After 19 Years By Rewiring Brain
dylanduck writes "A study of the recovery of a man who spent 19 years in a minimally conscious state has revealed the likely cause of his regained consciousness - his brain rewired itself around the injured areas into totally novel structures. It suggests the human brain shows far greater potential for recovery and regeneration then ever suspected." From the article: "There were ... significant changes between scans taken just two months after the recovery, and the most recent, at 18 months. Some of the new pathways had receded again, while others seem to have strengthened and taken over as Wallis continued to improve."
"Surprisingly, the circuits look nothing like normal brain anatomy"
Well, it IS possible! Right?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
it took me about 5 tries before I realised this wasn't about brain patents :(
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
Not funny anymore.
that although Slashdot regulars generally are in a "minimally conscious state", for rewiring to occur there must be something to rewire in the first place.
*looks around*
*slowly and uneasily raises right hand*
Because I'd be pretty pissed if I spent 18 years in a coma and I wasn't psychic.
Wow. The brain is without doubt the most interesting part of the (male) human body.
... was unavailable for comment.
/so going to hell
The Cosby Show is over.
There is hope for Slashdot after all!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Neuroscientists in the epilepsy and learning and memory communities have known for years about the nervous systems ability to rewire and remodel in response to deafferentation. In fact, the reluctance to believe in this by other members of the neuroscience community (vision community) led to some two decades of misunderstanding of retinal degenerative diseases until we came along and demonstrated conclusively in the retina that remodeling also occurs. The deal is that neurons need input. They either get it via glutamatergic signaling or calcium mediated signaling in normal circumstances. When those signaling mechanisms are disturbed, neurons either rewire seeking additional input, or they die.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
After rewiring his brain he is now BS 7671 compliant and can be used in europe.
Does this mean that the incurably unintellectual politicians and religious leaders we seem to put in charge of everything can hope to rewire and do a better Job :-)?
IANAD by the way.
python>>> q="'";s='q="%c";s=%c%s%c;print s%%(q,q,s,q)';print s%(q,q,s,q)
I would like to know what limits the rewiring rate in such a state? Is it metabolic? Or does the rate of new axon growth and synapse formation follow the normal growth rate of neural cells late in life - which, as I recall, is fairly slow?. This was obviously a long process, but was there a certain "critical point" reached during the rewiring that, once passed, assured recovery of functions? Is this subconscious dreaming or thinking that manipulates signaling, and could simple brain simulaion methods achieve a similar goal in the absence of such a process? Hopefully such a case generates academic interest that will help progress this area of brain research.
Well, this is absolutley incredible news, but I am curious if some would see it as being a survival mechinism?
Except for Rip Van Winkle, I don't think that a 19 year period of repair and adaption would really lend itself to survival. Not to say that this isn't miraculous, but, I'm sure the recovery time will be significant.
Besides, would you really want to wake up 20 years older, with years of rehabilitation to look forward to? I would be more concerned with the ethics of keeping someone alive for that long.
I was in a real bad wreck in 1976, my brain hardly worked for a year or more, but I got better. I wonder what a scan of it would look like? Would it be wierdly wired like this guy's?
Few people I know would be surprised to find my brain was wired wierd.
Since then, the thought has occurred to me that I could have actually gone into a coma and the last forty years could have been a dream. But then, any of you could have had an accident and not know it, and be dreaming this. So there's little point in not behaving as if reality is real, especially considering the incredibly high probability that this IS real.
I wonder if he dreamed?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
NEWSIE:
Tonight, on Eyewitness News: a man who's been in a coma for 19 years wakes up.
MAN:
Do Sonny and Cher still have that stupid show?
NEWSIE:
No, uh, she won an Oscar, and he's a Congressman.
MAN:
Good night! [Turns over and dies.]
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
that guy is named Corwin, isn't he????
He was in a coma. There was enough extant brain matter to hold out hope for a minimal recovery at some future point. The minimal recovery occurred about 3 years ago and they have studied his brain since then to see how it develops after such a long period of inactivity in a lot of regions. Basic brain growth due to everyday practice of activities (in his case, limited activities) is all that is being observed. This is not a breakthrough by any means and appears to me, with the press release, etc., to be written to attract funding to the authors for further study by implying novelty in their research.
I hope you're joking. The article clearly states that the guy wasn't braindead, but remained with minimal cousciousness. He wasn't dead at all.
Thanks! It makes more sense now.... But, 19 years.... Laying down.... Alone.... I couldn't do it!
You've just made a pretty strong argument for setting up an advance directive, or at least talking your wishes over with someone you trust. An advance directive is a very unpleasant document because it forces you to think unpleasant thoughts. (Do I want to receive nutrition and hydration, or would I rather die quicker of thirst?) But it does get the job done in the event you can't speak for yourself.
The man described in the article has lost those 19 years. Hopefully he'll recover sufficiently to find some meaning, purpose, and enjoyment in the remainder of his life.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
"suggests the human brain shows far greater potential for recovery and regeneration then ever suspected."
Hardly. This took 19 YEARS. Thats hardly what I'd call potential. Yes its surprising
but given that time period who knows what alive but dormant neurons will do on their
own. This is unlikely to be an evolved response since in the wild a creature with this
level of brain damage would be lucky to survive 19 hours.
Nah, being in a "minimally conscious state" means they were able to put him to work as a hospital administrator.
I for one welcome our new classic overlords.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
We keep hearing stories about people who regain consciousness in spite of the fact that the 'experts' say they can't. It worries me a lot that the doctors are quick to pronounce somebody brain dead so they can rip out the organs. Often, as was the case here, relatives will insist on keeping someone alive over the objections of the doctors.
Of course the other reason I'm against organ transplants is that the Chinese harvest organs from prisoners.
Anyway, staying on topic, this kind of thing happens too often. The experts say they totally understand brain death but I don't quite believe them. I also don't trust them to tell me the truth after I found out that they have their own definition of "heroic measures". There is nothing heroic about "heroic measures". They ask you: "Should we take heroic measures?" and you being young and naive, reply that they shouldn't. So, on that basis, ask me if I trust the medical community about brain death. I don't.
This video gives you some idea of what minimally conscious means.
"Oh boy"
I hate to feed the troll, but Terri Schiavo's brain was destroyed. She was blind, brain dead, and for all intents and purposes, a shell. There's a huge difference between her case, and this one.
Over the past few years, I've steadily built up respect and mod-points to the point where I have a +1 comment bonus. Well, it was all for this one moment: so that I could say something that needs to be said, and yet still have my account and maybe even my +1 bonus survive the consequences. ...
You, sir, or madam, are embarrasingly stupid.
Untrue. Managers have half a brain, so this actually brings usage up to 6%. We round to ten just to be nice.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I mean think about it, last time he was awake was in 1987. The world has changed ALOT since then... I wonder how I'd feel?
"Internet? What's that? Computers, those are the huge things that big businesses and the government use, right?"
We need a name for this recovery process. How about "brain nukem forever"? :)
Welcome! To the world of... tomorrow!
It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.
-Voltaire
There was a mexican movie (ficticious) about a 19-yo guy who went into coma in 1971 and woke up in 1992, having to cope with a grown up family, an older (and remarried) wife, and of course, new political times.
It was called "El bulto" (the bag). Very interesting movie.
Keeping him on support all this time must have been (or will be) an incredible financial drain on his family. I'd imagine that the medical bill was ludicrous, so hopefully he comes from a family with money. Being alive is great, but life sure isn't going to be easy considering:
a) When he looks into a mirror his face will be 19 years older... from 19 to 38 kinda sucks
b) His muscle mass will be negligable. After being in a cast for only 3-4 weeks after an ankle break my leg muscles had shrunk and strength decreased noticably
c) He's got a lot of educational catching up to do. Hopefully he worked as a carpenter, plumber, or some other job where old skills are still useful with some upgrading (if he was into computers 19 years ago he's gonna be way behind)
d) Likely there's still a bit of other funkiness with his body after 19 years and major brain damage.
e) Scientists are going to poke and prod him to research this regeneration.
On the plus side:
a) Medicine should be a bit better than it was then
b) Technology in many cases will be pretty cool. Even if he's bedridden for a long time it'll likely be a wonder for him to try out a modern console
c) That first post-vegetitive shower is going to be really nice
d) Add to that a real dinner after being on hospital food and drips for 19 years...
e) Somebody with a brain that regenerates that well will be of interest to science, which is annoying but possibly good for paying the bills.
Now there is this case of a man who was declared by experts to be in a permanent minimally-conscious state waking up after 19 years. Makes me wonder if letting treatment continue wouldn't be such a bad idea. What if you got a second chance to live?
Blow that for a game of soldiers. If I woke up after 19 years in a coma, my first question would be why didn't someone hadn't pulled the plug/ removed the tube yet.
A full recovery never happens, except in movies. People don't just wake up from a coma. The damage affects them for the rest of their lives. After 19 years, the person you knew would be a stranger to you anyway, and there's not much of that person left.
I wouldn't want anyone close to me to waste their lives praying over a vegetable for 19 years in the hope that a half-me will wake up to be taken care of in much the same way. There comes a point when modern medicine stops saving people's lives and is simply prolonging suffering, both for the victim and their family. It's not easy to gauge when that line gets crossed, but when it has been, its time to let go.
May the Maths Be with you!
Actually small children can have at least half of their brain removed and still function normally in later life. It's pretty amazing! I once read about a man who had had to take a brain scan. The scan revealed that the only brain tissue he had, only covered the inner surface of his skull, apparently he was born like that, and he functioned normally. Of course I cannot find any documentation about it now, but the link I've provided describes a "normal" procedure. It can cure rare epeleptic disorders and other things. ;)
Mind boggling
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
"I used the thing the brain was the most amazing organ in the body. Then I realized, well, look what's telling me that!"
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
This google search reveals lots more info on hemisperectomy.
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
I saw a TV show about this guy some time ago (PBS? Discovery? National Geographic?). Yes, he is awake, but the poor guy is in very bad shape. He has very limited use of his body; his brain is unable to store any new information for more than a few seconds; and his frontal lobe is basically gone so he has no sense of boundaries when communicating with people. His 20-year old daughter is his primary caretaker, and since he thinks he's a 19 year-old and is unable to remember that she is his daughter, he keeps asking her for sexual favors and groping her any chance he has. He is also very verbally abusive towards her and pretty much everyone else.
Yes, he's no longer in a coma, but he is far from functional.
I couldn't find the actual published study that the New Scientist article (sort of) referenced (maybe it hasn't been accepted for publication yet?). However, I did find this article by the auther mentioned, which is a very readable look at a few cases of brain-damaged patients (including an explanation as to why Terry Schaivo isn't in the same category at all). Unfortunately it doesn't go very in depth into the details of how Willis' brain rewired itself, which I was interested in. Still, very informative reading.
19 years ago the original Battlestar Galactica would have still been a fresh show with state-of-the-art effects. We should show him the new Battlestar Galactica just to watch how fast he goes back into another coma!
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Just as a point of clarification...."minimally concious" is different from the "persistent vegetative state" ascribed by physicians to Terri Schiavo. The EEG and CAT scan of the former show a viable, though damaged, brain with persistent activity that remains even while the patient is unresponsive (which is not the same as unconcious). The EEG and CAT scan of the latter show no viable brain activity above the brain stem and no amount of "rewiring" will change matters. Using the analogy of a (simplified) power grid, the first is like knocking out a couple of distribution stations, the second is like knocking out the dam...the water still flows but it serves no useful function.
He who would be a man, must be a nonconformist. -- Emerson
the young woman who was, like this gentleman, in what many people called a "persistent vegetative state".
While Schiavo was in a vegetative state and had no hope for recovery, this man was in a minimally conscious state. If this man had been in a persistent vegetative state, he would not be recovering (albeit very slowly and with little hope of his former abilities) today. It is a significant mistake to equate these two states.
Would there ever be a chance S[c]hiavo could've recovered like this man did?
No.
From TFA: a difficult process considering he believed himself to be 19, and that Ronald Reagan was still president.
...)
So this guy's in coma for 19 years, and he wakes up, and he asks, "How's President Reagan doing?" And the doctor says, "Sir, Reagan is dead." And the guy says, "Oh God, no, that means Bush is President!"
(The original was Eisenhower and Nixon. The more things change
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Somehow he has cobbled together a random assortment of other brainwaves into a working mind.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Again, this is the problem when people use grand generalizations about complex things like the brain without knowing specifically what they are talking about. Hemispheres have basic redundancies built into their structures. That's just not the same thing as removing key structures entirely, from both hemispheres.
Oh, and more importantly, we're generally there talking about very young developing brains. Early on, the brain is far more plastic and undifferntiated: like a poetic jell-o mold that hasn't set yet, it hasn't taken a shape that can be destroyed. But that doesn't last in adulthood. It's also worth noting that the structures being removed in these cases are, in fact the most undifferntiated and general purpose parts of the brain (the ones dealing with overall higher consciousness): not the specific structures I was talking about. A lot of people seem to think that hemimegalencephaly involves removing half the brain, but that's not really the case at all.
No, he was only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do. Go through his clothes and look for loose change.
props to William Goldman
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Well, that's nice. Good for him. Hope he recovers well.
I guess it depends on what kind of psychic you're talking about... but I would assume the ability to recieve and broadcast... In which case it would be the perfect cover. Who's going to suspect the guy in the almost-coma of being the one secretly controlling the world, eh?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Terry woke up three years ago, and the story was rather widely reported back then. In fact, Terri Schiavo has, in her time, often been compared to Terry - in fact, their medical cases share almost no similarities.
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The story itself has woken up in 2006, for reasons unknown. You can find a better article than the one of the front page at http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060703/full/06070
This everything2 article is probably the best I found about Terry, including updates from 2004: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=14758
Also, some updates on the family's fight with health services, from 2005: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/6/2
"A full recovery never happens, except in movies. People don't just wake up from a coma. The damage affects them for the rest of their lives. After 19 years, the person you knew would be a stranger to you anyway, and there's not much of that person left."
I've seen this man on television a year or two ago. (This was before the recovery this article is talking about.) His speech was slurred rather badly and he had trouble putting sentences together. I first read about him on Slashdot and thought "Wow, this guy's going to hear about 20 years of world events for the first time. He's going to hear about the internet and cell phones and DVDs and all that other neat stuff." I was actually envious of him in a superficial way. (What can I say? My imagination got the better of me!) When I saw him on TV, all that optimism died. I really didn't feel like any of this could be explained to him in a way that would make much sense to him. Like you said, he wasn't asleep all these years, he was severly brain damaged.
I wish him a good recovery, but I think you're right.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'd suggest 6th grade English, in your case.
Yeah, that was my feeling. When a relative of mine was in a similair state a number of years back, all the doctors that we talked to pretty much said the same thing - coming back from a coma was possible, although very rare if they didn't wake up within a few months. But at a certain point, there's nothing left to repair... it's the difference between a puncture wound and amputation.
On a side note... It wasn't until after the whole Schiavo thing blew over that I figured out why it bothered me so much. The very same people who go on about the sanctity of marriage were trying to take away the right of a spouse to make medical decisions for a incapitated spouse. Isn't that a much worse precedent that my two female neigbors?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
If I'd been awake after such a long time and I know there are many people behind be, happy that I woke up, getting all the support I'd get ... I'd be happy at that time. Who knows he can work from plumbing to computers, depending on his own persistance and the support he will get with this.
Living in this society is a very depressing thing; for sure if you are thrown 19 years further in life; although; it might be a nice view for him, depending on how he will think and develop; so why not give this guy a chance in life instead of expecting the worst ?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
So who am I supposed to believe? The guy who's paying out settlement money to continue her medical care, or the medical staff who probably wanted her organs, or the priest and family who supposedly have Terri's best interests at heart?
How about you go with the autopsy?
The brain itself weighed 615 g, only half the weight expected for a female of her age, height, and weight. Microscopic examination revealed extensive damage to nearly all brain regions, including the cerebral cortex, the thalami, the basal ganglia, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the midbrain. The neuropathologic changes in her brain were precisely of the type seen in patients who enter a PVS following cardiac arrest. Throughout the cerebral cortex, the large pyramidal neurons that comprise some 70 percent of cortical cells--critical to the functioning of the cortex--were completely lost.
The cortical neurons, the ones that do the thinking, the ones that make a person a person, where completely GONE.
Kidney and other various tissue that still lives and works does not a living person make. Kidney and other various tissue that is dead or gone not make a person dead. The only organ that matters, the only tissue that matters, the thinking cortical brain neurons where completely gone. Not just dead brain tissue, but gone brain tissue. Dead and disintegrated. Terri died so long ago that she had long ago returned to dust. The only organ that mattered had died and disintegrated and returned to dust long ago.
All that remained of brain tissue were autonomic reflexes and a shriveled mush of non-thinking support cells. The blood vessel cells remained, the connective support cells remained, but the thinking neurons were gone. A small shriveled lump of empty goo.
So who am I supposed to believe?
Had you looked into the facts and the science of the case, had you paid attention to the calm reasonable rational court review and rulings on the case, it should have been easy to spot that one side of the fight was the "reality based community" and had the facts of reality on their side, and tha the other side of the battle were irrational crusaders with a serious reality-disconnect and reality-disinterest.
The autopsy proves that the people claiming that Terri was awake, alive, concious, and most of all responsive were either lying, or more likely self deceiving about it. People sitting there watching Terri's body breath and blink and twitch autonomically who convined themselves that some random blink or twitch was a meaningful concious reply to their questions and actions... convincing themselves and deluding themselves because they so desperately wanted to beleive, people who so desperately wanted to ignore and dismiss all of the facts of reality, people who so desperately wanted to ignore and reject the science and all the evidence.
I'm sorry to beat this horse to death, but the only organ that mattered, the thinking brain, was completely gone. Period. End of story. Gone. It is unbeleivable how many people are in such denial about that fact. No thinking brain tissue means no mind and no person and no possibility there was any concious response to anything.
And it's obscene that politicians and activists took this sad sad case and turned it into a circus and political football. That people took this sad sad case and abused it for their peorsonal political aggrandizement.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.