A group of English neuroscientists has discovered that it is possible to establish a two-way 'conversation' with people in a permanent vegetative state, thanks to a device already present everywhere capable of reading their brain activity.

The researchers noted that some individuals in this state are able to understand what they are told and follow commands to perform some actions: the project can radically change the way these patients are treated. In the experiment, 16 patients at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge were asked to imagine the movement of a right hand and a foot.

Their brain waves were followed with an electroencephalogram connected to a helmet equipped with electrodes: the same mental path was done by 12 healthy volunteers, to evaluate the correspondence of the brain pathways. Well, 3 of the 16 patients activated the same areas of the brain as the healthy volunteers, demonstrating that they had understood and 'responded' to the request.

An important corollary to this study, published online in the journal The Lancet, is that the electroencephalogram can be as effective as magnetic resonance imaging in 'reading' patients' brain activity: a significant detail, given that it is a device much cheaper and portable.

The group, led by Prof. Adrian Owen of the Medical Research Council of Cognitive Sciences in Cambridge, has worked on 7 other similar projects in England, Belgium and Canada: “Our findings,” Owen said, “show how EEG can uncover abilities in patients who are in a vegetative state, and initiate a future of 'routine communications' with some of these patients, based on the classification of their mental states".

How much do these people suffer? Would they like to continue 'living' in their state, do they have the possibility to express a wish, to ask that it be respected? I think of the recent cases in Italy, such as that of Eluana Englaro, in a vegetative state for 16 years and at the center of often instrumental controversies in the face of painful choices made by people close to her in the absence of alternatives. What could it mean to establish contact, to understand what these patients perceive of the outside world? For many of them, being aware of their situation could represent hell. On the other hand, establishing communication with subjects in a vegetative state could open up new knowledge on the subject: being able to ask questions and obtain answers could shed light on some aspects of this particular state that are still unclear.