In general, patients who have been in a coma for a long time are increasingly less likely to wake up. A recently published study, however, has shown how using electrodes to deliver pulses to a specific region of the brain associated with consciousness may offer hope for awakening.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and published in the scientific journal Neuron , involved a research team implanting electrodes into the brains of macaque monkeys. The aim: to bring them out of the coma. Using an innovative technique called deep brain stimulation, the researchers did with these monkeys what you do with a car using battery cables: give an impulse to start again.
The researchers targeted specific parts of the brain of the anesthetized monkeys called central lateral thalamus. When stimulated in that particular area, monkeys open their eyes, stretch or retract their limbs, move their faces and bodies. A technique not far from the bypass one already tested on paralyzed people, to give them the impulse to use their limbs.
It is not a simple automatic reaction: the vital signs have also changed.
However, once the stimulation stopped, the monkeys returned to their original situation.
getting people out of a coma with an implant: still early
The study is still a few years away before a practical application on a human being. At least three steps are needed: in the first place, further testing on monkeys is necessary. It remains to be seen whether the monkeys, in addition to temporarily emerging from the coma, can carry out complex activities before falling back into their deep sleep, once the impulse has been "switched off". The next stage of the studies will have the task of confirming the effectiveness and stability of the treatment. Finally, the most beautiful and fascinating part: the one in which an authorization will allow researchers to test the treatment on human patients in comas.
