ABSTRACT
The patients trapped in a vegetative state were asked to think about one of two scenarios. In the first, patients were asked to envision themselves playing tennis. In the second, they were asked to think of a familiar place and mentally walk around that room or space. The idea was that the tennis playing, even just thinking about it, would elicit brain activity in the motor region of the brain. These two studies show persuasively that some patients in a vegetative state can have brain activation reflecting preserved internal consciousness and voluntary mental activities. Perhaps so much so that, for these kind of internally conscious patients, the diagnosis of "vegetative state" is misleading. These patients seem to be at least minimally conscious inside, but at the same time locked-in, unable to express their consciousness through any bodily movements or actions.
