植物人的大脑可对问题发出响应

Scientists have been able to reach into the mind of a brain-damaged man and communicate with his thoughts.

科学家已经能够深入大脑受损病人的思想并与之交流。

The research, carried out at in the UK and in Belgium, involved a new brain scanning method.

Awareness was detected in three other patients previously diagnosed as being in a vegetative植物人状态的 state.

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that scans can detect signs of awareness in patients thought to be closed off封锁，隔绝 from the world.

Patients in a vegetative state are awake, not in a coma陷于昏迷, but have no awareness because of severe严厉的，剧烈的 brain damage.

Scanning technique

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging机能性核共振成像 (fMRI) which shows brain activity in real time.

They asked patients and healthy volunteers to imagine playing tennis while they were being scanned.

In each of the volunteers this stimulated activity in the pre-motor cortex皮质区, part of the brain which deals with movement.

This also happened in four out of 23 of the patients presumed to be in a vegetative state.

I volunteered to test out the scanning technique.

I gave the scientists two women's names, one of which was my mother's.

I imagined playing tennis when they said the right name, and within a minute they had worked out her name.

They were also able to guess correctly whether I had children.