10-17-2006, 02:24 AM
<!--emo&:cool--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' /><!--endemo--> Brain-damaged man helped by electric pulses
[ 17 Oct, 2006 0044hrs ISTAGENCIES ]
RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates
Dr Bernat said he did not expect the treatment to help brain-damaged patients who had been totally unresponsive for more than a year. But for those who become occasionally or partly responsive after an injury, he said, "I think we should be aggressive and do whatever it takes" to induce improvement.
The doctors threaded two wires through the man's skull and into a subcortical area called the thalamus, which acts as a switching center for circuits that support arousal, attention and emotion, among other functions. The wires were connected to a pacemakerlike unit, implanted under the man's collarbone.
Soon after the operation, and after the device was turned on to adjust the stimulation dose, the patient began to speak words, identifying pictures in a battery of tests, and became gradually more attentive.
"Even though this is a first step, it is of utmost importance, because it shows that this therapeutic approach is worth studying," said Dr Steven Laureys, a neurologist at the University of Liège in Belgium.
"I can only hope that further cases will confirm this result, because if that would fail, we would see this whole idea go back into the fridge for a long time."
NYT news service
< Previous|1|2|
[ 17 Oct, 2006 0044hrs ISTAGENCIES ]
RSS Feeds| SMS NEWS to 8888 for latest updates
Dr Bernat said he did not expect the treatment to help brain-damaged patients who had been totally unresponsive for more than a year. But for those who become occasionally or partly responsive after an injury, he said, "I think we should be aggressive and do whatever it takes" to induce improvement.
The doctors threaded two wires through the man's skull and into a subcortical area called the thalamus, which acts as a switching center for circuits that support arousal, attention and emotion, among other functions. The wires were connected to a pacemakerlike unit, implanted under the man's collarbone.
Soon after the operation, and after the device was turned on to adjust the stimulation dose, the patient began to speak words, identifying pictures in a battery of tests, and became gradually more attentive.
"Even though this is a first step, it is of utmost importance, because it shows that this therapeutic approach is worth studying," said Dr Steven Laureys, a neurologist at the University of Liège in Belgium.
"I can only hope that further cases will confirm this result, because if that would fail, we would see this whole idea go back into the fridge for a long time."
NYT news service
< Previous|1|2|