New Study Shows Brain Activity in 25% of Unresponsive Patients with Severe Brain Injury

Last week, the New York Times published a story on a recent study exploring the state of consciousness in severe brain injury patients. When someone sustains a severe brain injury, they may enter into a coma or unresponsive state, appearing to have limited brain function that makes them unresponsive to outside stimuli. However, a recent study featured in the New England Journal of Medicine found that survivors of brain injuries who are unresponsive may indeed have consciousness. Out of 241 patients surveyed in the study, about 25% displayed brain activity similar to that of healthy individuals. This is a significant development in the field of brain injury research and could have implications for the medical standards of treating patients with this condition.

“This research is important for the size of the sample and rigor of the protocol, but it may be premature to call this conscious processing,” said John D. Corrigan, PhD, national research director of the Brain Injury Association of America. “It does however demonstrate that making a decision to withdraw life supports at 48 or 72 hours based on a person’s apparent unresponsiveness after a severe traumatic brain injury is premature. In many circumstances, physicians and hospitals should take a more cautious approach and not require families to make a quick decision.”

The topic of levels of consciousness in people who have sustained severe brain injuries is gaining traction in the field of brain injury research. Last month, the Brain Injury Association of America published an article explaining new evidence that suggests that life support may be withdrawn too early in patients with severe traumatic brain injuries.