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Vegetative Patients Can Still Learn
enigma48 writes to mention that a collaborative study between the Universities of Buenos Aires and Cambridge have demonstrated that individuals in a vegetative state can still learn and demonstrate at least a partial consciousness. Their findings are reported in a recent online edition of Nature Neuroscience. "It is the first time that scientists have tested whether patients in vegetative and minimally conscious states can learn. By establishing that they can, it is believed that this simple test will enable practitioners to assess the patient's consciousness without the need of imaging. The abstract is also available in the advance issue of Nature."
You might take this with a grain of salt as this Scientific American article points out it relies on fMRI (with the researcher also expressing caution). The same sort of scans were used to recently show that dead salmon think and also was called into question before that. From what I understand, there's a potentially huge problem with the statistical correlation done on the data to reach the images and conclusion (basically you are able to decide how much of a result you get). Given these sequential very controversial findings, I think it's time to push for research on these tools and research processes to ensure they are robust and reporting correct findings.
My work here is dung.
I learned alot from Veggie Tales. Correlation?
I have been in many a long lecture that has put me in a vegetative state.
I managed to graduate, so I must have leaned something.
for the editors of /.
oogly boogly!
We've had stories of Zombie Salmon, rats that walk despite broken spines and now we're told that those with no brain activity can learn?!?
Granted, that could be both politicians and zombies, but I'm preparing for the worst: Zombie Politicians. Don't believe me? This one was just a prototype!. They're amongst us, they cannot think, they cannot be stopped, they're learning AND THEY'RE RUNNING THE COUNTRY!
The lunatics were right! We ARE losing the country. Zombie Jesus save us all!
My guess is that we will spend millions of dollars studying this. I really don't understand why someone would want to be kept alive for years because they may learn something. I can only imagine they will learn how it sucks to be kept alive by machines. How do we know they are not experiencing a lot of pain?
My wife is a teacher in a classroom of severely disabled kids. She's had a few that some would call 'vegitative' despite having some awareness of their surroundings.
This study probably won't change anything, because most people decide what does and doesn't count as 'alive' on a gut level. You'll even find people way at the ends of the bell curve, saying relatively high-functioning people should be put to sleep or insisting that someone whose brain has been removed entirely is still alive somewhere "in there".
Personally, I lean to the "still alive" end of things - possibly further than logic anc science would support.
More likely than not, ppl like Frist will claim that this is proof of why he was right about Schiavo.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
For the fun of it, I googled "vegetable state" and here's what I found: "The research suggests that some of these patients may be misdiagnosed as being unconscious, when, in fact, they are aware of their surroundings but trapped in their immobile bodies." Here's the link: http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/10/breaking_through_to_.html
Holy cow, where did you learn that stuff? From Paul MacLean? None of that reflects anywhere near current neurobiological evidence, let alone terminology! And I think the Neo-Cortex must only exist inside the Matrix, most everyone that's not a loon from the 80s calls it the cerebral cortex, or simply cortex.
The cortex is actually responsible for muscle control and movement patterning, disinhibited in the basal ganglia, through sensory proprioception from the cerebellum. It's all nicely integrated. The cortex has nothing to do with cognition. Although it does store memory I would not consider memory to be the fundamental element of cognition.
At any rate, you are correct in the idea that there is not one core region of processing. For instance, the spinal cord itself is actually a smart cable and does its own processing and reflex computations, so the fact that these patients anticipated a negative stimulus is not in and of itself evidence of cognitive function. Having not read anything but the abstract, if the aversive stimulus was in fact an eye-puff, that is a strong indicator that the brainstem, cerebellum and parts of the cerebral cortex are intact and functioning. If it were a foot stimulus, that says little about the brain. The classic experiment of the hinter-years involving a cat with its brain removed except for the brain stem and spinal cord, and yet the cat possessed the autonomic reflexes required to walk on a treadmill when properly positioned, is evidence of this. However, the article probably goes in depth about how this is viable for fundamental brain function, as is indicated by the abstract.
Ok, so the vegetative people can learn...
That doesn't solve our biggest problem. What do we do with all the none vegetative people who cannot learn? You know... those people who think "intellegent design" is biology, and can drive a car, own a gun, and vote.
An attorney, cross-examining the local coroner, queried, "Before you signed the death certificate had you taken the man's pulse?"
"No," the coroner replied.
"Well, then, did you listen for a heart beat?"
The coroner answered, "No."
"Did you check for respiration? Breathing?", asked the attorney.
Again the coroner replied, "No."
"Ah," the attorney said, "So when you signed the death certificate you had not taken any steps to make sure the man was dead, had you?"
The coroner rolled his eyes, and shot back "Counselor, at the time I signed the death certificate the man's brain was sitting in a jar on my desk. But I can see your point. For all I know he could be out there practicing law somewhere."
What did they use for the control group in the study? Dead fish heads? C-level executives? Former presidents?
I'm not doubting or disqualifying other states of mind, but let's hear a round of cheer for the one that most people percieve - wakeful thought and cognizant awareness; the idea of self and the myriad of directions it takes us in.
Chances are, you've pondered the notion at one time or another, 'I wonder if anyone else is thinking this right now', or 'I wonder how many other people have thought what I'm thinking'. What a supreme notion, to be able to have recursive thoughts where we can examine our own thoughts and compare them to the thoughts of others. Suddenly we're not thinking about the object anymore, we're thinking about thinking about the object and pondering if others have done the same thing.
Hurray for the executive control system of the mind!
Of course the Schiavo case is the first to come to mind, but doesn't it seem that the term "persistent vegetative state" is becoming less well defined? It seems that survivors making end of life decisions for loved ones have to deal with very murky information.
Read, learn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocortex
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=25283
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Does this imply that high school kids might learn?
Sea slugs can learn under classical conditioning; it doesn't require consciousness or even a brain.
Considering that even networks comprising little more than a motor neuron, a sensory neuron, and an excitatory interneuron (a la Aplysia) can `learn', why is this surprising/interesting?
Now, if you want to talk about the maintenance of actual `human-like behaviour' being reason to rethink the position of veggie-people, I'll be willing to talk. But a vegetable is a vegetable--there's a reason we don't treat vegetables like we do humans.