British researchers believe that they have found a way to communicate with people who appear to be in a vegetative state. Recent studies have shown that responses from some of these people can be detected with an fMRI scanner. Damian Cruse, of the Medical Research Council’s Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, has found that electrodes pasted to a patients scalp can detect the difference between imagining a clenched hand and imagining wiggling one’s toes. The electroencephalogram (EEG), is far cheaper and more portable than a fMRI machine. This makes it possible to ask patients Yes and No questions.

Their conclusion is that it may be possible to communicate with people who were thought to be brain dead, but who have really been locked in without any way to communicate. There may be only a few of these people, but for them, it could be transforming. As The Economist notes, “Given that solitary confinement is one of the harshest punishments known, and that such people are condemned to the worst sort of solitary imaginable, [this] would… be wonderful.” ~ Economist, Jun 17