How could they tell? First, they checked that she could process speech. Upon being told "there was milk and sugar in the coffee," the fMRI showed brain regions reacting the same in the woman and in healthy volunteers.
Then came the big test. Owen told the woman to perform a mental task — to imagine herself playing tennis and walking through her house. Motor-control regions of her brain lit up like they did in the healthy people he compared with her.
"There is no other explanation for this than that she has intentionally decided to involve herself in the study and do what we asked when we asked," Owen said in an interview.
Other scientists say that's not clear-cut.
The results are "not totally convincing of consciousness," neuroscientist Lionel Naccache of INSERM, France's national science institute, wrote in a review in Science. He cautioned that the woman's injuries weren't as massive as those of most vegetative-state patients.
Columbia's Hirsch said the woman is not conscious. But, "it tells me that this patient's brain is operating the essential elements for consciousness. The machinery is there and operating," she said.
Owen refused to disclose the woman's current condition. But asked if the brain activity suggests she could recover, he said, "We just don't know."
Hirsch said there is little funding for research on the vegetative state, and legal hurdles to working with those patients, but the new report demands that more be done.
