'Persistent Vegitative States' And The 'Culture Of Death' - More Evidence That They're 'Dead Wrong' :: Life Issues

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September 8, 2006

'Persistent Vegitative States' And The 'Culture Of Death' - More Evidence That They're 'Dead Wrong'

The findings challenge the standard diagnosis of a vegetative state, implying that some patients might have what Dr. Lionel Naccache of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research called "a rich mental life."

Dr. Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist whose Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge led the study the physcian says that he ""was absolutely stunned" by the results," and that "This showed that she is aware.""

Rorschach writes at Lonestar Times:

A British researcher has recently issued a paper on the subject of diagnoses of "Persistent Vegitative States" (PVS) that is sending shock waves through the culture of death. A British woman that had been diagnosed as PVS was studied over several months using functional MRI (fMRI) technology. This technology can "see" thoughts. Actually it detects changes in blood flow in different areas of the brain as they are stimulated/accessed. It was found that the woman was actually thinking and feeling and imagining and understanding words spoken to her. The goal was to determine if fMRI can be used as a tool to better diagnose those people who truly are in a PVS vs those who may have some consiousness. Current estimates I've read indicate that PVS may be misdiagnosed as much as 35% of the time or more. Nobody really knows for sure how accurate that estimation is however. The simple fact of the matter is that the diagnosis of PVS is extremely difficult to make with any certainty using the current tools. That is why this is such big news. If a better tool can be found to help diagnose those who are still minimally concious and may be aware but unable to interact with the world, the culture of death will have a much harder time killing off those who they have decided are not worth trying to save or treat.

Continue reading and you'll find out why it's now going to be harder for us to "pull the plug" on paitients (as it should have always been) because families will demand that a better diagnosis be made (with additional commentary).

The procedure that was used by Dr. Owen, fMRI, is based on the increase in blood flow to the local vasculature that accompanies neural activity in the brain. This results in a corresponding local reduction in deoxyhemoglobin because the increase in blood flow occurs without an increase of similar magnitude in oxygen extraction.

The main advantages to fMRI as a technique to image brain activity related to a specific task or sensory process include 1) the signal does not require injections of radioactive isotopes, 2) the total scan time required can be very short, i.e., on the order of 1.5 to 2.0 min per run (depending on the paradigm), and 3) the in-plane resolution of the functional image is generally about 1.5 x 1.5 mm although resolutions less than 1 mm are possible. To put these advantages in perspective, functional images obtained by the earlier method of positron emission tomography, PET, require injections of radioactive isotopes, multiple acquisitions, and, therefore, extended imaging times. Further, the expected resolution of PET images is much larger than the usual fMRI pixel size. Additionally, PET usually requires that multiple individual brain images are combined in order to obtain a reliable signal. Consequently, information on a single patient is compromised and limited to a finite number of imaging sessions. Although these limitations may serve many neuroscience applications, they are not optimally suitable to assist in a neurosurgical or treatment plan for a specific individual.

Find out more in "The Future Role of functional MRI in Medical Applications."

Hat tip - Stanley B.

Posted by Richard at September 8, 2006 4:25 PM

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