Economist 2010.06.17
PATIENTS in a vegetative state are, by definition, unable to respond to stimulation with any form of overt behaviour.
Recently, however, a group of British and Belgian researchers have shown that some of them respond to simple commands by altering their brain activity while in an MRI scanner.
At the annual meeting of the Organisation for Human Brain Mapping in Barcelona on June 7th, the British half of the group described how it has taken an important step towards helping such patients communicate.