Given all the posting I have been doing on consciousness recently, I found Emily Singer's article, Raising Consciousness, rather timely. Singer is the biotechnology and life sciences editor of Technology Review.
Singer describes the difference between a "minimally conscious state" (MCS) and a vegetative state. After a severe brain injury, a patient enters a coma. After days or weeks in a coma, a surviving patient can enter a vegetative state (completely unaware) or a minimally conscious state (partially aware). A patient could remain in a minimally conscious state for years. Some estimates put the number of MCS patients as high as 25,000 ... nearly 10 times the number of vegetative patients. I had no idea the number was that high.
The issue of brain injuries hits near to home in the PCA these days. Please pray for Dustin Salter and his family. Reverend Salter, the RUF pastor at Furman, has been in a coma since November 8th when he fell off his bike while riding with his sons near his home.
Brain injuries are strange, as Singer points out in her article. She discusses a patient who woke up after 19 years in a minimally conscious state.
There were some quotes from Singer's article that support points I made in an earlier post on consciousness.
"Consciousness is a subjective, first-person experience," says Laureys. "It is very tricky to conclude the absence of consciousness based on the absence of response at the bedside. There might be some inner world that we have no way to assess."
...snip...
"The findings sparked intense interest among neurologists, but without direct reports from the subjects themselves, it was difficult to judge exactly what the patients were experiencing."
...snip...
"Perhaps the most perplexing question raised by the results concerns the patient's state of mind: is she truly conscious? That's a matter of some debate: Owen believes the patient was aware of herself and her surroundings, but other neurologists aren't so sure. "No one knows what she really was thinking during scanning," says Laureys.
The answer may come with Owen's next round of experiments, which are designed to perform what some consider the best test of consciousness--asking a person about his or her state of mind."
This supports the second claim I made here. Specifically,
Second, there is the private access issue. Each of us has private access to our own thoughts. Observers who are monitoring our brains are dependent on us to know what we are thinking. They can observe brain tissue activity ... not thoughts. Thoughts don't show up on MRI's.
Brain imaging is neat stuff. But, it will only allow us to observe that physical thing known as the brain. It won't allow us to observe the mind. The mind is only accessible to you and God ... not to neuroscientists. They will always have to ask you what you are thinking. One more piece of evidence proving that the brain does not equal the mind.
I wish godspeed to researchers who are exploring ways to use technology to help awaken patients from an MCS state. Kudos to Singer for raising our awareness to this situation. And please say a prayer for the Salter family.
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