What if people in a coma feel pain...

• Autores: Julia Sklar
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2905, 2013, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Alexandra Markl at the Schon clinic in Bad Aibling, Germany, and colleagues studied people with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS)--also known as vegetative state--and identified activity in brain areas involved in the emotional aspects of pain. People with UWS can make reflex movements but can't show subjective awareness. Markl and her colleagues have found evidence of activation in the affective or emotional network. Her team gave moderately painful electric shocks to 30 people with UWS, while scanning their brains using fMRI. Sixteen people had some kind of brain activation--seven only in the sensory network but nine in the affective network as well. These results question whether some diagnoses should change from UWS to minimally conscious, which is characterized by some level of awareness.