Canadian researchers find signs of awareness in comatose patient, study says – CTV
Sept. 4, 2024
Researchers in London, Ont., say they were able to detect awareness in a comatose patient with a brain injury — a finding they say “opens the door” to providing better care with the hope of more accurately predicting critically injured patients’ prognosis for recovery.
A neuroimaging technique called functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to shine light waves into three patients’ brains to find activity in response to different commands, said a study published recently in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.
The patients had already been deemed clinically unresponsive, meaning they had not reacted when asked to give a thumbs up, wiggle their toes or open and close their eyes, said Karnig Kazazian, co-lead author of the study.
“By showing that some patients might still be ‘in there’ despite behaviourally showing no signs, you can imagine that this would really greatly influence that decision of whether or not you stay on life support or transition to passing away peacefully,” said Kazazian, a research associate at Lawson Health Research Institute and the London Health Sciences Centre.
