Patient Revives After 19 Years By Rewiring Brain 419
dylanduck writes "A study of the recovery of a man who spent 19 years in a minimally conscious state has revealed the likely cause of his regained consciousness - his brain rewired itself around the injured areas into totally novel structures. It suggests the human brain shows far greater potential for recovery and regeneration then ever suspected." From the article: "There were ... significant changes between scans taken just two months after the recovery, and the most recent, at 18 months. Some of the new pathways had receded again, while others seem to have strengthened and taken over as Wallis continued to improve."
Re:Terri Schiavo... (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks for taking one for team and saying what everyone else was thinking. But just in case anyone is really thinking there's an important parallel there or anything, remember that her case was substantially different: most of her brain was literally dead and gone - actually a mush of fluid. Rewiring "around" an injured area (as in the case cited) depends upon having surrounding brain material that's still viable. She was coasting on real low-level left-overs, and there simply wasn't a platform for that sort of recovery.
Re:19 years? (Score:3, Informative)
IANAD by the way.
Re:Rewiring speed up (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Terri Schiavo... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So, did he get X-ray vision? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:We can rebuild him.... (Score:5, Informative)
He's four years old now, and I would love if my son, at any age, woke up one day and started to learn the things he's missed (talking, crawling and then walking, etc). My wife and I read a lot about brain injury and the possibility of his recovery. The nature of his injury always gives me hope that because the damaged areas are so small, it may be easier for his brain to compensate.
Unfortunately, because of the state of medical research in the USA (stem cell especially), My family is probably going to have to travel to another country to take advantage of any treatments that may be developed in the next few years.
Re:TERRI SCHIAVO (December 3, 1963 - March 31, 200 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Please note... (Score:5, Informative)
See http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm [snopes.com] for more info.
More information (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Terri Schiavo... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:At the risk of fanning a fire... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:At the risk of fanning a fire... (Score:5, Informative)
While Schiavo was in a vegetative state and had no hope for recovery, this man was in a minimally conscious state. If this man had been in a persistent vegetative state, he would not be recovering (albeit very slowly and with little hope of his former abilities) today. It is a significant mistake to equate these two states.
Would there ever be a chance S[c]hiavo could've recovered like this man did?
No.
Re:Terri Schiavo... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Terri Schiavo... (Score:5, Informative)
A hemispherectomy removes up to half of the cerebrum. To be technically alive you only need an operating brain stem. The brain stem isn't plastic though -- it won't rewire itself to make you conscious again. Only the cerebrum can do that.
So the difference between Terri Schiavo and this guy is that Ms. Schiavo had a devastated cerebrum and enough brian stem left to keep her sort of alive. This guy had some localized damage that happened to be in a critical area.
Re:Terri Schiavo... (Score:3, Informative)
I know, her brain was part mush, but that really wasn't the point as far as the uber-fundies were concerned. They (and certain moran Senators/Congressmen) claim she was not in a veggie state & therefore might someday make a recovery.
IMHO, that's why all the mainstream news reports mention that this would never have happened to Mrs. Schiavo. That said, it wouldn't surprise me if this story started popping up without that qualifier.
This guy [floridabap...itness.com] (notice the newspaper's name) is still fear mongering about the "culture of death" and the "highly misleading" media reports.
Anyways, Schiavo is the news story that won't go away
http://news.google.com/news?q=schiavo [google.com]
Re:Great potential for recovery? (Score:2, Informative)
There is more to the story of Terry Wallis (Score:5, Informative)
The story itself has woken up in 2006, for reasons unknown. You can find a better article than the one of the front page at http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060703/full/06070
This everything2 article is probably the best I found about Terry, including updates from 2004: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=14758
Also, some updates on the family's fight with health services, from 2005: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/6/2
Re:At the risk of fanning a fire... (Score:3, Informative)
I've seen this man on television a year or two ago. (This was before the recovery this article is talking about.) His speech was slurred rather badly and he had trouble putting sentences together. I first read about him on Slashdot and thought "Wow, this guy's going to hear about 20 years of world events for the first time. He's going to hear about the internet and cell phones and DVDs and all that other neat stuff." I was actually envious of him in a superficial way. (What can I say? My imagination got the better of me!) When I saw him on TV, all that optimism died. I really didn't feel like any of this could be explained to him in a way that would make much sense to him. Like you said, he wasn't asleep all these years, he was severly brain damaged.
I wish him a good recovery, but I think you're right.
Re:TERRI SCHIAVO (December 3, 1963 - March 31, 200 (Score:3, Informative)
How about you go with the autopsy?
The brain itself weighed 615 g, only half the weight expected for a female of her age, height, and weight. Microscopic examination revealed extensive damage to nearly all brain regions, including the cerebral cortex, the thalami, the basal ganglia, the hippocampus, the cerebellum, and the midbrain. The neuropathologic changes in her brain were precisely of the type seen in patients who enter a PVS following cardiac arrest. Throughout the cerebral cortex, the large pyramidal neurons that comprise some 70 percent of cortical cells--critical to the functioning of the cortex--were completely lost.
The cortical neurons, the ones that do the thinking, the ones that make a person a person, where completely GONE.
Kidney and other various tissue that still lives and works does not a living person make. Kidney and other various tissue that is dead or gone not make a person dead. The only organ that matters, the only tissue that matters, the thinking cortical brain neurons where completely gone. Not just dead brain tissue, but gone brain tissue. Dead and disintegrated. Terri died so long ago that she had long ago returned to dust. The only organ that mattered had died and disintegrated and returned to dust long ago.
All that remained of brain tissue were autonomic reflexes and a shriveled mush of non-thinking support cells. The blood vessel cells remained, the connective support cells remained, but the thinking neurons were gone. A small shriveled lump of empty goo.
So who am I supposed to believe?
Had you looked into the facts and the science of the case, had you paid attention to the calm reasonable rational court review and rulings on the case, it should have been easy to spot that one side of the fight was the "reality based community" and had the facts of reality on their side, and tha the other side of the battle were irrational crusaders with a serious reality-disconnect and reality-disinterest.
The autopsy proves that the people claiming that Terri was awake, alive, concious, and most of all responsive were either lying, or more likely self deceiving about it. People sitting there watching Terri's body breath and blink and twitch autonomically who convined themselves that some random blink or twitch was a meaningful concious reply to their questions and actions... convincing themselves and deluding themselves because they so desperately wanted to beleive, people who so desperately wanted to ignore and dismiss all of the facts of reality, people who so desperately wanted to ignore and reject the science and all the evidence.
I'm sorry to beat this horse to death, but the only organ that mattered, the thinking brain, was completely gone. Period. End of story. Gone. It is unbeleivable how many people are in such denial about that fact. No thinking brain tissue means no mind and no person and no possibility there was any concious response to anything.
And it's obscene that politicians and activists took this sad sad case and turned it into a circus and political football. That people took this sad sad case and abused it for their peorsonal political aggrandizement.
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