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Patient Revives After 19 Years By Rewiring Brain

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the my-favorite-organ dept.

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."

14 of 419 comments (clear)

  1. Damn typical slashdot stories by zegebbers · · Score: 5, Funny

    it took me about 5 tries before I realised this wasn't about brain patents :(

    --
    Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
  2. Re:I, for one... by joshier · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not funny anymore.

  3. Yeah but can he see the future? by gijoel · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because I'd be pretty pissed if I spent 18 years in a coma and I wasn't psychic.

  4. Terri Schiavo... by l33td00d42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... was unavailable for comment.

    /so going to hell

    1. Re:Terri Schiavo... by plunge · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While Schiavo in particular was indeed gorked beyond ungorking, its a little misleading to show laypeople that scan and claim that it dramatically demonstrates the point. There are actually people walking around today with CT scans that are similarly horrifying in the huge spaces. There are people making do okay with some very abnormal brains. The difference with Schiavo is that the spaces were caused by particular sorts of massive brain inujries and the complete atrophy of particular areas of the brain. But you can't tell that directly from a CT, especially as a layperson. For all a layperson knows, the critical areas could simply be moved around and squished but still functioning to some degree. In Schiavo they were not, but a layperson just can't tell so dramatically as looking at one CT.

      It's also important to remember that the brain is not ALL just undifferentiated mush, but has all sort of specialized areas that cannot be replaced by other specialized areas. The guy in this article has damage to some of those areas, and more importantly ther breaking of important connections BETWEEN areas, but not a total loss of any area: they still had functioning sections that rewired and worked overtime to compensate. However, if both of your hippocampi die, it's not like your amygdala is suddenly going to switch over and start performing their functions.

      This case has been paraded around because of the Schiavo case, but in doing so its only illuminated how medically ignorant some people are: they don't care about the specifics, or learning about how the brain works, and they lump together uncertainties about one area of knowledge about the brain (its ability to create new connections to repair damage, which contrary to the sort of hyperbolic claims of the article, we've always known is pretty plastic and this is just an extreme example) and try to pretend that raise questions about a completely different area of knowledge: all without acknowledging that there are any key differences or even thinking about them.

    2. Re:Terri Schiavo... by ceoyoyo · · Score: 5, Informative

      A hemispherectomy is not a half brain lobotomy. At a (very) high level your brain consists of four major anatomical regions, the brain stem, cerebellum and the two hemispheres of the cerebrum. The cerebellum is known to handle coordinated motions and looks like it's involved in memory too. The brain stem is the oldest part and takes care of all the vital functions like breathing. The cerebrum is where most of the interesting stuff happens, like personality, intelligence, voluntary movement and processing of sensory information.

      A hemispherectomy removes up to half of the cerebrum. To be technically alive you only need an operating brain stem. The brain stem isn't plastic though -- it won't rewire itself to make you conscious again. Only the cerebrum can do that.

      So the difference between Terri Schiavo and this guy is that Ms. Schiavo had a devastated cerebrum and enough brian stem left to keep her sort of alive. This guy had some localized damage that happened to be in a critical area.

  5. Neuronal remodeling by BWJones · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  6. Re:So, did he get X-ray vision? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    How about if you're in a semi-colon? Or a period?

  7. Re:We can rebuild him.... by Wireless+Joe · · Score: 5, Informative
    Besides, would you really want to wake up 20 years older, with years of rehabilitation to look forward to?
    My son developed Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) soon after he was born. PVL is usually characterized by large cysts in the brain that affect particular functions. In my son's case, the PVL was diffuese and spread throughout his brain in small, rice-grain sized cysts and affects his general functionality. We're not "keeping him alive" in a medical sence, but he does seemed destined to spend the rest of his life in a "minimally conscious state".

    He's four years old now, and I would love if my son, at any age, woke up one day and started to learn the things he's missed (talking, crawling and then walking, etc). My wife and I read a lot about brain injury and the possibility of his recovery. The nature of his injury always gives me hope that because the damaged areas are so small, it may be easier for his brain to compensate.

    Unfortunately, because of the state of medical research in the USA (stem cell especially), My family is probably going to have to travel to another country to take advantage of any treatments that may be developed in the next few years.
  8. Re:TERRI SCHIAVO (December 3, 1963 - March 31, 200 by tpjunkie · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:TERRI SCHIAVO (December 3, 1963 - March 31, 200 by plunge · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

  10. TV Show? by Joao · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:At the risk of fanning a fire... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  12. There is more to the story of Terry Wallis by hernick · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    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/060703 -5.html

    This everything2 article is probably the best I found about Terry, including updates from 2004: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=147582 5

    Also, some updates on the family's fight with health services, from 2005: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/6/21 /143438.shtml