Coma Archives

painting of person on beach facing an oncoming tidal wave

Coma

Stretching the Boundaries of Near-Death

At a recent NYAS symposium, researchers describe methods to “extend the window of opportunity in which the brain can be salvaged”

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Redefining Death

Partial Revival of Pig Brains Raises Ethical and Existential Questions

Can brain cells be revived after death? Conventional wisdom says cells die quickly when deprived of oxygen, but researchers recently sparked cellular activity in brains of pigs killed hours earlier, raising new questions about our definitions of death.

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The Struggle for Consciousness

Report from Neuroscience 2015

Connection to community and family should be a patient’s right, whether that person is fully conscious or minimally conscious, argued researcher Joseph Fins at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

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Disorders of Consciousness: Brain Death, Coma, and the Vegetative and Minimally Conscious States

Report on Progress

The authors present two scenarios on what are the disorders of consciousness: wakefulness, awareness, consciousness, coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, and brain death.

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Seeking the Neural Signature of Consciousness

Cambridge researchers using EEG find network activity differs among minimally conscious patients, and the possibility of predicting the potential to communicate even in non-responsive people.

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