One by One, Neuroscience Is Unlocking the Brain’s Mysteries, Speakers Say at Hitachi Lecture

The patient suffered from advanced Lou Gehrig’s disease and had been in a vegetative state for two years, never speaking, never showing a sign that she could hear. But Japanese scientist Hideaki Koizumi wanted to know more about her condition, and so he fitted the patient with a novel brain scanner—a thin cap with electrodes attached.

When he asked her to try to speak, the language production areas of her brain lit up the brain-imaging equipment. When he asked her to listen to what he said, the language comprehension area of her brain activated. As he prepared to ask her some questions, he told her that if she wanted to answer yes, she should imagine moving her hand in a certain way; to answer ‘no,’ she shouldn’t imagine anything at all.

Then, as he asked her questions, the researchers were stunned to find that the apparently unconscious woman was answering their questions. “We found that this patient has clear consciousness,” Koizumi said at a lecture jointly sponsored by Hitachi Ltd. and AAAS.

During the lecture, Koizumi and U.S. researcher Thomas Woolsey described frontiers of neuroscience to the audience. To learn more, read the full story.