If it's true that some brain damaged patients are actually
capable of communicating with their brains, even though there
are no movements made by their bodies, wouldn't that make "right
to die" issues so much more complicated? But I'm jumping ahead
here... Let me share the research and let you come to your own
conclusions.... Martin M. Monti, PhD, of the UK Medical Research
Council, along with his British and Belgian colleagues, studied
a total of 54 patients who were diagnosed as either being in a
vegetative state (having non-associative muscle movements) or in
a minimally conscious state (having some ability to respond, but
inconsistently). The patients underwent functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI); that is, their brain activity was
observed immediately after they were given certain instructions
by the examiners. Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in
Disorders of Consciousness: Figure 1 One of the instructions was
to imagine being on a tennis court hitting a ball back and forth
with a tennis inst