Vegetative Patients Can Still Learn 159
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."
fMRI Strikes Again (Score:2, Informative)
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. A earlier study in 2006 used fMRI. This study used a simple classical conditioning test where they played a tune before blowing in the patients eyelid.
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Um... Yes.
Just a very, very, very small amount.
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree with this, not to mention they are talking about things that are borderline instinctual. That is not the same as "learning" in the sense of the phrase. Reminds me of that fatal birth defect where a kid is born without the top of their skull so it doesn't form all of the brain, but enough for them to cry, smile, etc and causes people serious emotional stress because it appears to be cognition when it's not.
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:5, Insightful)
Reminds me of that fatal birth defect where a kid is born without the top of their skull so it doesn't form all of the brain, but enough for them to cry, smile, etc and causes people serious emotional stress because it appears to be cognition when it's not.
It breaks my heart just thinking about being in that situation. To love someone so much and for you to find out that they can't love you back... and what you thought were the most special moments of your life were all a lie.
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:5, Funny)
It breaks my heart just thinking about being in that situation. To love someone so much and for you to find out that they can't love you back... and what you thought were the most special moments of your life were all a lie.
Isn't that a country music song?
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:5, Funny)
No, the pickup still works and the dog didn't die.
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:5, Funny)
To love someone so much and for you to find out that they can't love you back... and what you thought were the most special moments of your life were all a lie.
Lesson learned: never take a RealDoll to the prom.
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:4, Funny)
... and what you thought were the most special moments of your life were all a lie.
Thanks... and I was having such a great Monday too...
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Well, I can understand the emotional distress, but the value of a birth is what people choose to put into it, same as abortion.
The can't love back part, well, many people have had relationships like that. I mean Zooey Deschanel and Jennifer Love Hewitt still don't respond to my love letters and the requests for them to bear my children.
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They ignore you too? I'm sorry, I can't even get an acknowledgment from them.
Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:5, Funny)
It breaks my heart just thinking about being in that situation. To love someone so much and for you to find out that they can't love you back... and what you thought were the most special moments of your life were all a lie.</blockquote>
Never been married before have you?
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Uhh..this is slashdot. He's never even had a girlfriend.
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It breaks my heart just thinking about being in that situation. To love someone so much and for you to find out that they can't love you back... and what you thought were the most special moments of your life were all a lie.
Happens all the time. At least someone who's missing a brain has an excuse for it.
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Great. Thanks for the pick-me-up, Debbie Downer!
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You can love a child that you know for a fact isn't yours. There is a choice involved. Babies found in dumpsters probably prove that.
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Well... no.
Babies found in dumpsters prove that someone can abandon a baby.
It doesn't prove that those babies were loved or will be loved in the future.
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I think it's mostly evolutionary programming. Human infants and babies of many other species have evolved physical characteristics that elicit an empathic response from adults of their species. Human infants are particularly helpless. Under the harsh conditions that early humans had to survive in, those infants that could not elicit the sympathy of the adult members of the tribe would simply be left to fend for themselves. I mean, why would you risk your life for this smelly, noisy, pathetic little "thing"
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I absolutely agree that we are preprogrammed to care for young/helpless children. But it is still a choice (imo of course).
Emotions were the most useful when we were still animals. Now, emotions take a backseat to rational thought. But that doesn't mean there can't be a backseat driver.. if the driver lets it happen.
Also, it just occured to me how many people feel uncomfortable just holding a baby, like they'll accidently break it or something. Maybe people are afraid of babies because of the strange mi
Kind of a contradiction? (Score:2)
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Well, that's kind of the entire point of the debate, isn't it?
*Some* doctors think that a vegetative state is more like a stroke- killing a portion of the brain, so you need to retrain what is left to bring the person back.
*Other* doctors think it's more like brain death or a coma- and no conditioning is possible.
This article is more proof of the first, denying the second.
M+ (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes, and along that line of thinking... unless all neurons are dead, you should never be surprised that some conditioning is still going on. Neurons adjust their levels, we know that. The interesting question is, is enough still going on in there to for it to be a person? If so, could we still make contact or even wake them up? As it is, all we've seen is conditioning that is slightly less complex than the M+ key on my pocket calculator.
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A Person's a Person, no Matter How Small.
-Dr. E. Horton.
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From Wikipedia's article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horton_Hears_a_Who [wikipedia.org]!
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Re:fMRI Strikes Again (Score:4, Informative)
FTFA:
Where in the description of the experiment involved do you find any mention of fMRI data?
In fact, I think you could mimic this experiment with a tuning fork and a turkey baster.
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In fact, I think you could mimic this experiment with a tuning fork and a turkey baster.
You kinky bastard.
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The blinking was actually them transmitting in morse code "turn the bloody music down".
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It involves hearing a tone. Auditory sensation is normally processed by the brain, although there may be some more direct pathway to the spinal cord that I'm unaware of.
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There are plenty of other studies, including at least on in Nature that have basically the same conclusion: fMRI data has to be analyzed properly to be meaningful.
Yeah, not all that earth shattering, but something that gets forgotten too often, particularly now. I've heard a prominent neurologist say that the worst thing about fMRI is that it's now so easy anybody can do it.
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They've found that when learning, they can measure brain response in a certain way. That doesn't mean that the brain responding that way indicates
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electric universe theory
Archimedes Plutonium, is that you and your theory, again ???
It has to be said (Score:4, Funny)
I learned alot from Veggie Tales. Correlation?
Re:It has to be said (Score:5, Funny)
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Hmmm... I think it's funny that this is on the front page, and also showing on the front page (right hand column) is Paraplegic Rats Enabled To "Walk" Again [slashdot.org] and Dead Salmon's "Brain Activity" Cautions fMRI Researchers [slashdot.org]. They seem related somehow.
I have known this for a long time (Score:2, Funny)
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.
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so I must have leaned something.
[Citation Required]
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I take it the lectures were in your English classes.
Vegetative Patients Can Still Learn (Score:2)
Vegetative Patients Can Still Learn
Well, let's be honest, no one like to admit this and we "support" them for their right to make their own decisions. But, most of us consider it a real lack of judgment, and making that conscious decision probably says a lot about their overall intelligence.
But, I have never felt that someone was beyond hope just because they will only eat vegetables!
{devilish grin}
So there is hope... (Score:3, Funny)
for the editors of /.
Wait, (Score:1)
Prepare for the zombie onslaught! (Score:4, Funny)
We've had stories of Zombie Salmon [slashdot.org], rats that walk despite broken spines [slashdot.org] 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! [wikipedia.org]. 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!
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Big deal - we know that SOB's really dead. This one's still alive! Well, if you can call it living.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd [wikipedia.org]
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"They're amongst us, they cannot think, they cannot be stopped, they're learning AND THEY'RE RUNNING THE COUNTRY!"
You had me until "they're learning"
Is it worth it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it worth it? (Score:4, Insightful)
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"I really don't understand why someone would want to be kept alive for years because their parents just won't give up."
People in vegetative sates don't "want" anything, at least not in terms familiar to us.
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I seriously doubt many physicians would follow up with "which puts them at the mental capacity of a gnat", even though a layman's concept of "learning" would make them assume a much higher level of intelligence.
There was research out last year that some can intelligently answer yes/no questions that would suppose consciousness given a short interval of training on how to answer. We hate to think that this could be true.
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Very interesting, and with obvious profound implications. Although I suppose the million dollar question would then be, when answering yes/no, are they right? I.e. are they responding to a stimuli in an intelligent/autonomous, consistent but arbitrary, or random manner?
They were accurate. IIRC, something along the lines of "is Nelly your uncle?" [no] "your aunt?" [yes].
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How do we know they are not experiencing a lot of pain?
And how do we know they aren't feeling perfectly content?
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The mods aren't being fair here. Any well-considered evaluation of current proposals' budgets does not include keeping these patients alive.
what ? (Score:2)
vegetative patents (Score:2)
What are "vegetative patents" ?
I suspect those are the types that are filed before the invention is actually complete (not even necessarily in regards to the invention ever being completed) - and they can indeed earn quite a bit.
It's not about the science at some point. (Score:2, Interesting)
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
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I subscribe to the test the Catholic Church uses for end-of-life issues, which isn't based on physiology but capability. They distinguish between ordinary and extraordinary means for extending life. Ordinary is the basics - food, shelter, whatever you'd do for a newborn or such. Extraordinary means is anything beyond that - artificial respiration, experimental treatments, etc.
I believe we are morally obligated to provide ordinary means of caring for someone, but not extraordinary. How it applies to peop
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The other issue - and this could just be because you didn't want to go into a more detailed definition here - is that by your definition of 'extraordinary' a huge percentage of us will fit into that at some point.
You are probably discounting anything short-term but the definition of short-term needs to be clarified in that case and you are still left with
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So, is the placenta "ordinary", or is it "extraordinary"?
The human placenta has a much greater capability than artificial respiration or any sort of experimental treatment. Why should they consent in disconnecting a fully grown human being from a machine but not allow a single cell to be disconnected from its life support system?
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a) I wasn't going to get into abortion, but...
b) I'm talking about deciding to remove artificial means of support. Abortion is actively severing a connection which, if left alone, will function just fine by itself.
If you pull someone off a ventilator, they will likely die, and that's ok. If they live, cool - but that doesn't mean you get to choke them.
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The catholic church is nothing but the ghost of the dead roman empire. Their ideas and opinions have no merit in modern society for two reasons. They base their morals on a doomsday cult's propaganda material instead of humanistic ideals from the enlightment spiced up with scientific knowledge. They do not derive their power from a social contract, a mandate from the masses and therefore have no place in a secular stat
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Harsh? No. Unoriginal and poorly constructed? Certainly.
Surely slashdot comments are not scientific papers or a Ph.D. disertation where originality matters?
If you must critisize, I would be endebted to you if you could do so in a contructive manner. What have you not understood? Where do you think my argument fails?
As for your last sentence, who are you to grant forgiveness? And to whom should they repent? God? FSM? or is there no one to which one can repent, as there is no Deity?
I am me to grant forgiveness. I can forgive and I can condemn. Not in the Jesus kind of way, where I can grant total forgiveness by divine fiat. But, I never said, nor implied that.
You don't need a deity to repent. Unless you mean to imply that
Frist (Score:5, Insightful)
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Whut? A Frist post that's not a frist psot?
My brain asplode.
Alternative implications (Score:1)
This is scary (Score:4, Interesting)
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In other words, there's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do: go through their clothes and look for loose change.
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Mostly dead is slightly alive
But fortunately, these patients' lungs are intact.
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You have an interesting idea of "fun."
Fuck, don't let PETA know (Score:2)
Won't even be able to eat a fucking carrot without these yobs throwing paint on me.
Two words: High school (Score:2)
Sure, we got high during breaks, but it doesn't mean we didn't learn anything. We displayed aversive avoidance behavior whenever a hot coal would fall on our fingers. Clear evidence of neural activity.
What about the non-vegetables... (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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Mandatory lawyer joke (Score:5, Funny)
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."
control group.. (Score:4, Funny)
What did they use for the control group in the study? Dead fish heads? C-level executives? Former presidents?
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Cognizant Thought, A True Gift... (Score:2, Interesting)
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 thoug
Legal ramifications (Score:2, Insightful)
When they say vegative patients (Score:2)
That's kind of insensitive, don't you think? (Score:2)
We prefer to call them "CEOs". And we know they can still learn once promoted, we constantly get idiotic requests from them which we all know comes from a golf buddy or vendor.
The Reflex (Score:2, Insightful)
I would tastelessly posit that you could program someone (or multiple someones) to preform a rudimentary calculation. If true, then we would have actual wet-ware to program. The question is then, what is the longest prog
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My only request... (Score:1)
Common knowledge? (Score:1)
I thought this was already proven by the existence of public schools.
Any Hope? (Score:3, Funny)
Does this imply that high school kids might learn?
far-fetched (Score:3, Insightful)
Sea slugs can learn under classical conditioning; it doesn't require consciousness or even a brain.
Vegetables can "learn" too, so why surprising? (Score:2, 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.
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You might take a hint from the researchers - they used Pavlovian conditioning [wikipedia.org] which, according to TFA, might be of help when considering a training program for your users [downonmyknees.com]. (Not necessarily SFW).
If you come up with a manual, or even a proposal for the program, maybe you can let us know. Come to think, this might be a good 'Ask Slashdot'.
Re:Humans Have Three Brains (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Read, learn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocortex [wikipedia.org]
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=25283 [medterms.com]