Using brain-scanning techniques, Canadian researchers have found that a person who had become completely unresponsive after a brain injury 16 years ago could follow an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
The person was in a vegetative state usually thought to mean that there was practically no consciousness.
The person showed the same brain activity patterns as normal persons while watching a highly engaging short film directed by Hitchcock.
It looked like the person was following the plot of the thriller, like normal persons.
Lorina Naci, a postdoctoral fellow from Western Ontario University’s Brain and Mind Institute, and her colleagues Rhodri Cusack, Mimma Anello and Adrian Owen, reported their findings on 15 September issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Participants in the study watched the short film by Hitchcock while inside the 3T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Scanner at Western’s Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping. All the persons, including the brain injured person, showed a common pattern of synchronized brain activity.
