Deep-brain electrical stimulation brings man out of vegetative state

A 38-year-old man who had been in a near-coma for six years was recently awakened via the use of a pacemaker and two electrodes which were deeply implanted in his brain. The electrical device, manufactured by a company called Medtronic, was used to send impulses to the area of the brain regulating consciousness, and researchers believe that the stimulation may be enhancing brain circuits that are still capable of functioning. The man, the first of 12 to undergo the procedure, has gone from a vegetative state to being able to play cards, speak with family members, and take trips outside. While this isn't exactly a new technology -- as doctors have been experimenting with deep-brain stimulation in the treatment of Parkinson's, epilepsy, and brain injuries for some time -- it is a clear sign that there's hope for patients whom the medical community has been, heretofore, unable to treat.

[Cody @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:03PM]

I've never heard of this before. I have to say, that's pretty impressive.

[Eric @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:06PM]

"The electrical device, manufactured by a company called Medtronics"

You state that as if it's just some random company. Medtronics is the world's largest biotech company.

[naugahyde @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:26PM]

The world's largest biotech company is not Medtronics, particularly since they aren't even a biotech company to begin with.

[Eric @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:34PM]

oh... erhh.. yes, not biotech. My bad. Largest medical technology company.

[tom @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:53PM]

The company is Medtronic, not Medtronics. I had an internship there in my last year of college. Great company. Brilliant people there.

[david @ Aug 2nd 2007 10:05PM]

Yup. They are the largest maker of pacemakers (I believe) and have a fairly good reputation in the health care industry.

[oxfdblue @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:07PM]

Saw this on the BBC website yesterday...really is incredible.



-------
www.theforgottenborough.com

[ozone @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:07PM]

This is some really amazing stuff. I was watching The Science Channel I believe and they were talking about those deep-brain stimulation treatments on Parkinson's sufferers. One man had undergone the procedure in which doctors give the patient local anesthesia and remains awake while doctors insert electrodes in the brain at the location where activity is sensed when the patient is having tremors. Those electrodes are hooked up to a pacemaker which cancels out the erractic signals the brain is sending to the muscles that are having spasms and the patient is essentially cured.

[npp777 @ Aug 8th 2007 7:55PM]

Company is Medtronic.

www.medtronic.com

[strider_mt2k @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:09PM]

"They could re-work me, but I'll never be top of the line again. I'd rather be nothing."

-the remains of Bishop from Alien 3

[Vanillacide @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:23PM]

Aye.

[Matt @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:17PM]

I remember, Michael Crichton wrote a good book about something like this. Where the electrodes were placed in a pleasure center, to stop a mans rage filled seizures. It would dose him with euphoria when a seizure came on.

Of course his brain got addicted, it trained itself to have more and more seizures until he was having them constantly, and then of course the unit malfunctioned and stopped dosing him with euphoria. So he went on a rampage.

Good book, called "The Terminal Man"

[Daran @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:15PM]

Damn, Terry Schievo could have used this.

[matt @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:21PM]

Not really, autopsy revealed her brain was pretty much swiss cheese due to brain damage so all the electrodes in the world couldn't have helped her.

[Bruce Savage @ Aug 5th 2007 10:15PM]

"The 38-year-old man is the first person in a minimally conscious state to be treated with deep-brain stimulation, a treatment that uses a pacemaker and two electrodes to send impulses into a part of the brain regulating consciousness."

NO NO Terry could not have. There is difference between a "minimally conscious" and "vegetative" state. The Engadget headline says "vegetative" but the yahoo story says "minimally conscious."

En gadget should defiantly change the headline of this post because it is clearly misleading.

[Daran @ Aug 2nd 2007 3:39PM]

I was being sarcastic, but yeah you're prolly right anyways.

[peter @ Aug 4th 2007 1:45PM]

yeah no kidding daran. i thought the only thing we could do with people in vegetative states was starve them to death for insurance money

[Richard @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:21PM]

Nah! People in a Permanent Vegetative State aren't really people. Don't you see?

I hope this technology "wakes up" some of the idiots out there who think that if you can't talk or respond in a way they can see, then, you are something less than human.

[paul34 @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:27PM]

If only it was that simple...

People like to make everything black and white. No offense, but the real world doesn't work like that.

This man was able to be brought back because he still had enough of a functional brain left to reactivate. Some don't. You can't just say everyone in a vegetative state can be brought back. We still don't understand so much about the human brain.

What is living? So many people think they have the answer to that... but if you really made them answer it, I doubt anyone would be able to answer it. We don't know. That's all there is to it.

[Josh @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:40PM]

"A 38-year-old man who had been in a near-coma for six years"

Emphasis on "near-coma". Thats a far cry from "Permanent Vegitative State". Near-coma means there is acctually a fair amount of brain activity on an EEG, unlike Permanent Vegitative State, where there is little. I don't think I know of a single fool who would pull the plug on someone in a "near-coma".

And if you honestly think people are pulling the plug on people just because the person can't, as you put it "talk or respond in a way they can see" you yourself are worse than an idiot, you're ignorant. Just because they look the same lying there in the bed does not mean that their brains are funtioning the same (or at all). That's why the doctors wear the white lab coats and you don't. Please, leave the science to the scientists.

[Richard @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:57PM]

Ah! Gentlemen, knowledge brings distinctions.

If the scientists say now that someone in a "PVS" is not alive and the science described in this blog - or some other science - makes it such that a corrected "short circuit" of neuronal pathways renders some "PVS" patients conscious and non-vegetative, were the scientists wrong? Were they negligent?

And what of the people who believed that their loved one in a PVS should have been allowed to continue living until the FDA approved this technique?

Most importantly, what of the politicians who REALLY have no clue of or respect for the science here, but make the rules.

[melloncollie @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:49PM]

Read the article, this guy wasn't a PVS case.

Sure, the scientists were wrong.
Scientists are almost always wrong when it comes to things.
That is why there is a process of trial an error involved.
Although, seeing as how scientists, what with all them book learnings and all, know more than a majority of the populace when it comes to their particular field.
Hence, we listen to scientists.

Well, I guess their lives will remain the same, considering the guy in this case was not in a PVS.

Look, you want to start a revolution against politics, go right ahead.
The politicians are the figureheads with power.
That's not going to change any time soon.
It'd be a utopia if specialists in a field could run that particular portion in a government.
Utopias do not exist.

[B @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:24PM]

Schiavo was brain dead, this man was in a coma. Big difference.

[Jeebus @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:34PM]

No need to insult the dead.

[ScreamingSkull @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:31PM]

How is that being insulting, she was brain-dead.

[greg Sciulli @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:27PM]

Here's a really interesting article about using this same technology on people suffering from severe depression who don't respond to meds:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/magazine/02depression.html?ex=1186200000&en=53c8028681c28c35&ei=5070

[tnriverfish @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:28PM]

He was in a "near" vegetative state. He had some hidden brain signals that people in a real vegetative state don't have. This procedure won't help those in a real vegetative state... may want to correct your headline.

[33scottie33 @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:29PM]

Very impressive! Although the same could be accomplished by giving the rest of the 12 patients an iPhone!!!!

Really, this is very impressive, but can we get the cure for the common cold first?

[Edge @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:51PM]

The reason there's not a cure for the common cold is because the virus in question mutates every year (or sooner) so that "cold" you get each year is different than the last forcing your immune system to re-learn the anti-cold. Plus there is more than one virus that causes the common cold.

[33scottie33 @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:16PM]

I disagree. The real reason there is not a cure for the cold and many other diseases is money.

Cold treatment is a multi-million dollar per year industry. The revenue from a cure would not offset the revenue that comes from the various treatments (tylenol, etc.). If you discovered it, you would probably be killed if you did not sell it to another company that would just lock it in a safe and not use it in order to keep making money.

The same with the oil industry. The oil companies have the technology to get us off of oil, but they have to make as much money as they can off of oil first. Then charge something simular for the new technology. That's why hybrids cost more. Business 101!

[T.H. @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:29PM]

Actually the guy wasn't even in a deep coma. Just in and out. He was semi-conscious part of the time and could at times respond. This basically stimulated his brain from a near sleep state to a more awake state.

[MichaelM @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:36PM]

I heard a report on this on NPR last night and it said that this will only work with people that still showed certain brain activity. The report also mentioned in passing that a similar technique had been tried on Terri Schiavo without success; and that it was hardly unexpected as she had shown no such brain activity.

On the down side, it sounded like the patient has no short term memory, and he's not exactly cured; though he's in a much better state than he had been.

[XGM @ Aug 2nd 2007 1:51PM]

Well this is a great start, since my uncle is pretty much in the same situation... I wish he could get better...


http://s2.darkpirates.com/c.php?uid=21325

[SiLo @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:09PM]

"Wise fwum yur gwae!" - Altered Beast, Sega Genesis

Anyhow, on a more serious note, I really think this is pretty neat. More and more like Frankenstein, no? Amazing how even back then they had an idea about electricity and the human body.

Does anyone know how long it takes for each individual body part (mostly critical ones) to be without blood/whatever before "dying?" Like, the brain, heart, lungs, eyes, etc.

As a computer technician/programmer, I often think of the human body as an analogy to the computer (or maybe the other way around). Of course, a computer part can be without electricity for an indefinite time before "going bad." Just wondering how organic parts fare on this, namely the human body.

[Barry Johansen @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:50PM]

Actually Earl Bakken, the founder of Medtronic and a pioneer in cardiac pacing (built one of the first, if not THE first pacemaker) credits Frankenstein as an influence in capturing his attention toward the use of electrical stimulation and physiological functioning.

[dan @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:40PM]

"We can rebuild him, we have the technology!"

Seriously, though, is he going to need those electrode in his brain all the time, or can he take it out now, since he's awake?

[Jonathan @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:47PM]

Yes, It's Medtronic. The Closed Loop system is in development, but the insulin pump and the guardian real time glucose monitoring system(http://www.minimed.com/products/guardian/) are both out. As for insurance, well- I am sure that in the *near* future sensors will be covered by insurance.

(looks around)

(goes back to making more glucose sensors for Medtronic Diabetes)

[DJBro @ Aug 2nd 2007 3:01PM]

I like how Engadget promptly removed my post after fixing their mistake in the article ;)

[Brett @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:16PM]

Ummmm... it's Core Neuro's deep brain stimulator... not sure why you're talking about insulin pumps which has nothing to do with the article. Last time I checked, MiniMed is but a small part of Medtronic.

BTW to the author... Medtronic is the largest pure-play medical device company in the world... unlike conglomerates such as JnJ.

[Jonathan @ Jan 19th 2008 12:46PM]

ahh- because I tried to respond to someone else's comment about the pump and the sensor and the closed loop system and I screwed it up :)

[jdang @ Aug 2nd 2007 6:58PM]

I don't know man, did anyone see the mother in Requiem for a Dream? I guess if you're a vegetable you have nothing to lose.

[merovin @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:56PM]

I have two of these electrodes implanted in my brain, and the run in to my chest where they are each hooked up to separate stimulator's that help to relax my muscles.
It was a 14 Hour operation, and then three days in the Intensive care.

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:28PM]

Terri Schiavo.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo

[Josh @ Aug 2nd 2007 6:22PM]

I'm glad you felt the need to contribute something of worth to this discussion.

[sdeanlee @ Aug 2nd 2007 8:55PM]

So they should not have pulled the plug on that girl.

[Twitchy @ Aug 2nd 2007 9:59PM]

Once again someone with a selective information disorder - this device is for patients who still have some brain activity, unlike Schaivo who didn't. This technique could not have revived her brain as there was nothing left to revive.

On another note, when will this device become mandatory for politicians?

[Salsa Shark @ Aug 2nd 2007 9:00PM]

If only they used this on Bush...

[Vishal P. @ Aug 2nd 2007 11:12PM]

"CHICAGO (Reuters) - A man with severe brain injuries who spent six years in a near-vegetative state ..."

NEAR-VEGETATIVE Does not equal Vegetative. Comments such as these fuel the idiots who thought Terry Shiavo could be brought back from PVS. Don't make a dubious claim just to sensationalize it.

[Kibi @ Aug 5th 2007 2:02AM]

Damn it - where's my droud?