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| The definition of consciousness involves two main
characteristics: wakefulness and awareness. A persistent
vegetative state (PVS) is a condition of patients with severe
cerebral brain damage in whom coma has progressed to a state of
wakefulness without detectable awareness (unconsciousness)
(Laureys, 2000). Recent functional neuroimaging results have
shown that some parts of the cortex are still functioning in
'vegetative' patients. Such studies are disentangling the neural
correlates of the vegetative state from the minimally conscious
state, and have major clinical consequences in addition to
empirical importance for the understanding of consciousness
(Laureys, 2000). The minimally conscious state (MCS) is a
recently defined clinical condition that differs from the
persistent vegetative state (PVS) by the presence of
inconsistent, but clearly discernible, behavioral evidence of
consc