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Well, not really. The treatment makes them twitch an eyelid a little more often than without brain zapping. Whether that's a quality of life you'd want sti
by caycep 13y ago
Well, not really. The treatment makes them twitch an eyelid a little more often than without brain zapping. Whether that's a quality of life you'd want still needs to be deliberated by all those involved...
- timdiggerm 13y agoHere, it's not about whether their current quality of life is good or not (obviously not), but about whether there's hope for eventual recovery. Treatments like this suggest there could be.
- phren0logy 13y agoThat is the most optimistic possible interpretation of this research. Sure, it's possible this line of research could lead to recovery, but the idea that the brain is "on pause" while in a persistent vegetative state and would be capable of returning to normal function is probably not reality.
- caycep 13y agoIn these cases, it's important to define recovery - in a lot of these cases, brain is dead, and dead is dead. Sometimes, the rest of the brain is plastic enough to "reroute"so you get something back, but most of these cases, to "recover", you'd essentially have to build a new brain... Keep in mind TDCS isn't a fancy brain machine interface that's intelligently interacting with neurons, it's just dumb direct current that's being sent into tissue... I think the overall line of research certainly is worthwhile pursuing, just that this specific tDCS project may be being overhyped in just how much it means...