26.

  1. Vegetative patients are more aware.
  2. Vegetative patients retain some control of their eye movement.
  3. EEG scans may help us communicate with the vegetative patients.
  4. We usually communicate with the brain-dead people by brain-wave.

(Click to show or hide the key.)

27.

  1. The left-hand side of the brain.
  2. The right-hand side of the brain.
  3. The central part of the brain.
  4. The front part of the brain.

(Click to show or hide the key.)

28.

  1. 31.
  2. 6.
  3. 4.
  4. 1.

(Click to show or hide the key.)

29.

  1. The patient was brain-dead.
  2. The patient wasn't brain-dead.
  3. The patient had some control over his eye movements.
  4. The patient knew the movement he or she was making.

(Click to show or hide the key.)

30.

  1. The patient is no technically vegetative.
  2. The patient can communicate in some way.
  3. We can train the patient of speak.
  4. The family members and doctors can provide better care.

(Click to show or hide the key.)

Brain wave scanners might make it possible to communicate with people who are considered brain-dead, according to a study reported in the Economist.

A couple of recent studies have shown that a small minority of vegetative patients might be more aware than they seem. Now, Damien Cruse, with the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Science Unit Cambridge, UK, thinks EEG machines will be able to help these patients communicate.

The team asked 6 healthy volunteers to wear EEG devices, which connect electrodes to a person's head. They were asked to respond to an audible tone by imagining that they were squeezing their right hands or wiggling the toes of both feet.

The researchers found that the volunteers ' brain responses were clearly different -- the hand-squeezing activated the left-hand side of the brain, and the toe-wiggling produced a response in the center of the brain.

Then they tested the procedure on a patient with locked-in syndrome, who was almost completely paralyzed but retains some control of his eye movements. His brain responses were the same. Finally, they tested the procedure on a patient who had been declared vegetative 2 years earlier. They watched the EEG signals and were able to deduce which movement the patient was imagining.

The same team had studied 23 vegetative patients over 4 years and found 4 patients were able to consistently respond to yes-or-no questions by changing their brain activity. They were asked to imagine playing tennis when they wanted to give one response, or walking around the house when they wanted to give the other.

Since the patients were responsive, they're not technically vegetative, the researchers say. Proof that they can communicate that they're not brain-dead would have major implications for family members' and doctors' decisions about their care.