Using fMRI to facilitate communication

I am sure that the publication of a study in February that demonstrated awareness in some patients who had been diagnosed in a permanent vegetative state (Monti et al, 2010) cannot have escaped your attention. This study was the culmination of a Medical Research Council (MRC)-funded programme of research collaboration between centres in the UK and Belgium and used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess patients' ability to generate wilful responses to communicate ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to simple questions. Of the 54 patients who were assessed, 5 were able to wilfully modulate their responses, demonstrating a level of awareness. Patients and healthy volunteers were asked to imagine playing tennis, which generated a response in the pre-motor cortex when the response to a particular biographical question was ‘yes’.