Word: brained
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...volunteers were outfitted with electrode caps - akin to a white shower cap with a jungle of wires sticking out of it - that tracked their brain waves in order to determine their stage of slumber. Using an electroencephalogram (EEG), investigators monitored the sleepers' brain activity, and just when the squiggly lines on the screen showed that participants had entered deep sleep, researchers began playing a series of 25 of the sounds that the individual had heard earlier in the memory game. "[The volume] was a little over a whisper, probably much [quieter] than ... your iPod," says John Rudoy...
...Nearly all of his voluntary muscles were paralyzed - including those controlling eye movement - but his brain functioned almost completely normally. He suffered from "locked-in syndrome," in which patients are aware of their surroundings but unable to communicate to the outside world. In the past three years, Houben has learned to talk through a computer: a language therapist traces his finger over a keypad and when it hovers over the desired letter, he contracts a muscle in his finger. He now has plans to write a book. "I screamed, but there was nothing to hear," Houben recently told a journalist...
...Houben's case come to light? Over the past five years, Laureys and others have studied brain-injury patients classified as being in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). In such states, patients awake from a coma and return to a normal sleep cycle, but show no signs of awareness or consciousness. Laureys and others have found that around 40% of such patients are misdiagnosed. Most of these misdiagnosed patients fall under a classification called "minimally conscious," in which they show subtle but consistent signs of awareness. (The "minimally conscious" classification was only recognized in 2002 thanks to the work...
...high risk of infection and can be heavily medicated, which may affect their responsiveness when tested by doctors. Popular diagnostic tools may also be to blame. In a study published in the medical journal BMC Neurology in July, Laureys found that one of the main tools for assessing brain function in intensive-care settings - the Glasgow Coma Scale - does not perform well in chronic cases. Laureys wrote that PVS patients should be tested frequently using a standardized evaluation called the Coma Recovery Scale-Revised, which involves more thorough tests such as measuring patients' eye-tracking abilities by moving a mirror...
...Houben's? The distinction between PVS and minimal consciousness has caused legal problems for years now. High-profile cases - most notably that of Floridian Terri Schiavo, whose husband ended her life in 2005 over the vehement protestations of Republican politicians - demonstrate how emotional and legally contentious care for brain-injury patients can be. Such legal fights are likely to become more common as classifications of brain-injury severity are revised. But some medical experts say there are a more immediate concerns than end-of-life questions: "The figures [of misdiagnoses] are frightening but they are facts," Laureys says. "Without giving...