Monday, September 21, 2009

Conscious learning at Vegetative state!

As mentioned in one of my previous posts, I'm not a fan of neuroscience per se, but I find deep interest in human psychology and cognition. Its only interest though, I've not yet done my home-works on these subjects!

I first read about the condition in New Scientist, its been a while... (may be I took that issue from Chittagong British Council which means it was at least 4 years back!) The article was patients who lost their motor function, yet have unaffected sensory perception. I wish I could do something for them. Being trapped inside the body and no communication with the world around you... its hard for me imagine how it feels! But we, the human being, survive.

The issue is closely intertwined with the patients in vegetative state, as declared by doctors. In a recent research, it was revealed that some of the patients in this state have their conscious learning part intact and their ability of conscious learning correlates with their prospect of recovering later on. This is an interesting result indeed. I would recommend reading the following link:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=learning-in-vegetative-state