New Tool To Measure Consciousness

bmahersciwriter writes "The line between consciousness and non-consciousness is thin, hard to define and, as the Terri Schiavo case taught us, often rife with ethical quandaries. A research team is developing a tool that will be able to quantify just how conscious a person is, which could prove to be quite useful for research and clinical practices. From the article: 'The metric relies on the idea that consciousness involves widespread communication between different areas of the brain, with each region performing specialized functions. Loss of consciousness during sleep or anaesthesia, or from brain injury, may be caused by the disengagement of brain regions from one another.'"

Comments

Low End Calibration Subject

[joelleo]

congress

Re:Glasgowmeter

[Medievalist]

Anyway the guy on the radio informs me that one of the patients is breathing but not conscious. So I asked him for his Glasgow score. In medicine we use something called the Glasgow score to evaluate the severity of neurological damage. [...snip...] Anyway, the paramedic goes off the radio for a few moments and I can hear him conferring with his buddy. After a while he gets back to me and says "Doc, I'm sorry but we don't have a Glasgowmeter here with us..."

I was expecting "Glasgow zero, Newcastle two and they've got the ball".