Recently, we reported on a study that showed that 25% of 241 unresponsive patients with brain injury showed consciousness when tested with brain scans.

That amounts to saying, though it isn’t quite spelled out, that many people — perhaps 100,000 in the US — may be labeled as “vegetables” who are in fact quite conscious. Efforts to reach or treat them were not undertaken because they were assumed to be futile.

Roughly, how it works (but different study):

Creighton University Medical School prof Charles Camosy thinks it is time for something like a civil rights movement for people in this state — it is now called covert consciousness:

That such a study has now received such public attention means that our Western understandings of the brain and consciousness may now finally come under some serious and sustained criticism. And perhaps such criticism can actually open the conceptual space in our imaginations for us to engage some alternative understandings and give them due consideration.

Charles Camosy, “The Mystery of Consciousness: New Study Challenges ‘Brain-Death’ Narrative,” NC Register, September 4, 2024

He is concerned about the move, even in Catholic circles, toward discarding the covertly conscious patients. While it is perhaps in line with the goals of the growing euthanasia movement, he says that it is heading in the exact opposite direction to the evidence:

Finally, let us address a recent claim from a study group organized by the leadership of the Pontifical Academy for Life in light of all this. This study group was apparently concerned with moving the Catholic moral theological needle toward refusing food and water to people who are deemed to be in a so-called vegetative state. There are obviously deep problems with this on the merits of the arguments, but the most fundamental problem might be the following: The study group failed to respond to the obvious signs of our times. Such signs include not only the dramatic and ongoing slouch toward aiming at death by physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, but these new and very important findings about the deeply mysterious realities of the brain and consciousness.

The signs of the times are not calling us to find ways to discard these populations with catastrophic brain injuries. On the contrary, this moment is calling us to mount a new movement in favor of their basic humanity and civil rights.

Camosy, ‘Brain-Death’ Narrative”

But is there anything that can be done to help them?

At the New York Times, science writer Carl Zimmer notes,

It’s possible that people with disorders of consciousness may one day take advantage of brain implants that have been developed to help people with other conditions to communicate.

On Wednesday, another team of researchers reported that a patient paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, was able to communicate through a brain implant after just 30 minutes of training.

Carl Zimmer, “Unresponsive Brain-Damaged Patients May Have Some Awareness,” New York Times, August 14, 2024

Brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink’s Telepathy are based on a simple principle: The human brain is an electrical system and neurons can thus send and receive signals coordinated with electronics. That’s what makes it technically possible.

The quadriplegic patient who received a Neuralink implant early this year is currently said to be using it to play chess and study French and Japanese.

It’s early days yet, of course. The biggest hurdle to overcome was probably the first one: Discovering the existence of covert consciousness in the first place.

You may also wish to read: Study: 25% of coma patients showed consciousness when tested. Making contact with patients via brain scanning technology is a first step toward treatment of those who may now be deemed hopeless cases. Comatose patients who are aware but cannot communicate in usual ways might be helped by new brain–computer interface (BCI) technologies.