(CNN) Doctors caring for released North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier said he has not spoken or moved on his own since he arrived in the United States on Tuesday, a condition they described as "unresponsive wakefulness" or persistent vegetative state. 
 
 The 22-year-old has suffered extensive loss of brain tissue in all regions of the brain, doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said in a news conference Thursday. 
 
 Also known as persistent vegetative state, the syndrome's symptoms include no voluntary movement or awareness of surroundings. Warmbier opens his eyes and blinks spontaneously but shows no signs of understanding language or responding to verbal commands, said Dr. Daniel Kanter, professor of neurology and director of the Neurocritical Care Program. 
 
 The news shed light on the Warmbier family's statement that their son suffered severe brain damage at some point in his 17 months of detention. 
 
 His parents said they learned of their son's condition -- what North Korea called a coma -- only last week. Earlier Thursday, Fred Warmbier said he rejected the regime's explanation that his son fell into a coma after contracting botulism and taking a sleeping pill in March 2016 after his trial for trying to steal a political banner. 
 
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 The doctors said they had no information about the care he received in North Korea. Though they could not say with certainty what caused his injuries, they found no evidence to support the botulism claim. But an analysis of images from North Korea of Warmbier's brain dated April 2016 suggests the injury occurred in the preceding weeks. 
 
 "We have no certifiable knowledge of the cause or circumstances of his neurological injuries," Kanter said. 
 
 "This pattern of brain injury is usually seen as result of cardiopulmonary arrest where blood supply to (the) brain is inadequate for a period of time, resulting in the death of brain tissue." 
 
 Conviction and release 
 
 Otto Warmbier was a University of Virginia student when he was detained in January 2016 at Pyongyang airport on his way home. He had been on a tour of the reclusive country, his parents said. 
 
 North Korean authorities claimed they had security footage of him trying to steal a banner containing a political slogan that was hanging from a wall of his Pyongyang hotel. 
 
 That was used as evidence in his hourlong trial. He was found guilty of committing a "hostile act" against the country and sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years of hard labor. It was the last time he was seen publicly before this week. 
 
 "Even if you believe their explanation of botulism and a sleeping pill causing a coma -- and we don't -- there is no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition a secret and denied him top-notch medical care for so long," said Fred Warmbier in a 23-minute news conference at his son's alma mater, Wyoming High School, north of Cincinnati. 
 
 The father saluted his son as a brilliant, adventurous and courageous man who did what he could to endure brutality and terror. 
 
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 The father, wearing the cream sport coat his son wore during his televised trial in North Korea, stopped short of saying how he believed his son was injured. 
 
 "We're going to leave that to the doctors today," he said. 
 
 Though they could not provide a specific cause, the doctors said Warmbier showed spastic, profound weakness and contractions in his muscles and legs. Beyond minor skin blemishes consistent with medical care they found no evidence of fractures or trauma to his body. 
 
 Nor did they find evidence of botulism, a toxin that causes nerve injury, Dr. Brandon Foreman said. Because it does not stay in the body for long doctors looked for signs of chronic denervation, which is loss of nerve supply, he said. "We did not find any evidence of that." 
 
 Critical of Obama administration 
 
 Fred Warmbier appeared critical of the Obama administration's handling of Otto's detention, saying the family heeded the US government's initial advice to take a low profile "without result." 
 
 They kept quiet "on the false premise that (North Korea) would treat Otto fairly and let him go," he said. 
 
 He said he and his wife, Cindy, decided this year that the "time for strategic patience was over," and so they did media interviews and traveled to Washington to meet the State Department's special representative for North Korean policy, Joseph Yun 
 
 Yun met in May with North Korean representatives in Norway, and the North Koreans agreed that Swedish representatives would be allowed to visit Otto Warmbier and three other US detainees, a senior State Department official said on condition of anonymity this week. 
 
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 After the Swedes visited one detainee, North Korea representatives sought another meeting with Yun, and it was at that June 6 meeting in New York that North Korea's UN ambassador told Yun that Warmbier was in a coma, the official said. 
 
 North Korea released Warmbier six days later. 
 
 Fred Warmbier praised the Trump administration's efforts: "They have our thanks for bringing Otto home." 
 
 When asked whether then-President Barack Obama could have done more, Warmbier replied, "I think the results speak for themselves." 
 
 Three other US detainees 
 
 Warmbier's release coincided with basketball star Dennis Rodman's latest visit to North Korea , though US national security spokesman Michael Anton said there is no connection between the two. 
 
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 Fred Warmbier said the same Thursday. 
 
 "Dennis Rodman had nothing to do with Otto," he said. 
 
 Rodman was asked by reporters Tuesday if he would bring up the cases of Warmbier and three other Americans detained in North Korea. "That's not my purpose right now," he said. "My purpose is to go over there and try to see if I can keep bringing sports to North Korea." 
 
 The other Americans held by Pyongyang are Kim Sang Duk and Kim Hak-song, academics who worked at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, and a businessman named Kim Dong Chul. 
 
 Fred Warmbier called on North Korea to release other American detainees. 
 
 "There's no excuse for the way the North Koreans treated our son. And no excuse for the way they've treated so many others," he said. "No other family should have to endure what the Warmbiers have." 

 Otto Warmbier, whose father says was "brutalized and terrorized" while detained for 17 months in North Korea and had fallen into a coma during that time, has a "severe" neurological injury, a hospital official said on Thursday. (Reuters) 
 
 WYOMING, Ohio — Wearing the jacket his son Otto Warmbier wore at the sham trial that ended with his imprisonment in North Korea, Fred Warmbier denounced the “pariah” regime that had brutalized his son and fought back tears Thursday as he talked about kneeling to hug him when he was returned to the United States in a coma. 
 
 “The fact that he was taken and treated this way is horrible,” Fred Warmbier said. “They’re brutal and they’re terroristic. We see the results of their actions, with Otto.” 
 
 Otto Warmbier is in stable condition but has suffered a severe neurological injury, Kelly Martin of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center told reporters at the news conference Thursday. 
 
 [Otto Warmbier has extensive loss of brain tissue, no obvious signs of trauma, doctors say] 
 
 Warmbier, 22, a student at the University of Virginia, had been detained in North Korea for 17 months and had no contact with the outside world for much of that time. Earlier this month, U.S. officials learned that he had been in a coma for more than a year, news that triggered an onslaught of diplomatic pressure for his release. He was medically evacuated and reunited with his family Tuesday. 
 
 His ordeal could escalate tensions between the United States and North Korea. But on Thursday, Fred Warmbier told of the personal toll it has taken, and the profound sense of relief that he and his family feel at no longer having to think about potential reaction from North Korean officials to everything from their words to the blue and white ribbons his neighbors tied to trees in this small city near Cincinnati to show their support for the family. 
 
 He spoke at Wyoming High School, where Otto Warmbier was salutatorian in 2013. 
 
 Video shot by a family friend in 2013 shows Otto Warmbier giving a speech as salutatorian at his graduation from Wyoming High School, in Wyoming, Ohio. Warmbier died on June 19, days after being released from North Korean detainment. (Courtesy of Fred and Cindy Warmbier) 
 
 “This is a place where Otto experienced some of the best moments of his young life,” Fred Warmbier said, with two of his son’s former teachers at his side. His wife, Cindy Warmbier, was with their son at the hospital, he said, as she has been since he arrived home Tuesday night. 
 
 He thanked the people who supported the family through the 18-month ordeal with their thoughts and prayers, and those who helped get his son home, especially Trump administration officials. 
 
 About 10 p.m. Wednesday, President Trump called him, he said, asking how Otto was doing and urging him to take care of himself. “It was gracious,” he said. “It was nice.” He said the president told him that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others had worked hard to free his son, and that he was sorry about his condition. 
 
 Asked whether he felt that the Obama administration had not done enough to help, Fred Warmbier said, “I think the results speak for themselves.” 
 
 Warmbier said he wanted to highlight the bittersweet relief that his son is now home in the arms of those who love him — and anger that he was so brutally treated for so long. 
 
 The family went 15 months without a word from their son, he said, only to find out a week ago that he was in a coma all of that time. Even if people believe the North Koreans’ explanation — “and we don’t,” he said — “there is no excuse for any civilized nation” to have kept his condition a secret and denied him medical care for so long. 
 
 When news broke Tuesday morning that Otto Warmbier would be coming home, after a year and a half of detention in North Korea, blue and white ribbons began appearing on trees in his home town. By noon, the entire stretch of the main street, shaded by branches arching overhead, had ribbons on every tree and every utility pole, hundreds and hundreds of them. 
 
 After being detained for 17 months in North Korea, University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier arrived home in Cincinnati on June 13. He has been in a coma for more than a year. (Anna Fifield/The Washington Post) 
 
 Support rises quickly, organically and quietly in this close-knit suburb of Cincinnati, said Lynn Tetley, the city manager. People take care of one another. And at a time when people were torn between extremes of joy and sorrow — the eldest son of a longtime local family was free, but they had just learned he had been in a coma for more than a year — they wanted a way to show the Warmbiers that they are loved. 
 
 [Otto Warmbier, said to be in a coma, finally released from North Korea] 
 
 Caught in the middle of a story fraught with international animosity, at a time of intense national polarization, Wyoming is holding on to something simple: neighborliness. 
 
 1 of 16 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × U-Va. student Otto Warmbier released from North Korea View Photos The University of Virginia student had been held in North Korea for 17 months for trying to steal a propaganda poster while on a trip to the country. Caption The University of Virginia student had been held in North Korea for 17 months for trying to steal a propaganda poster while on a trip to the country. Feb. 29, 2016 University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier speaks as he is presented to reporters in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Feb. 29, 2016. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison with hard labor. Kim Kwang Hyon/Associated Press Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 Wyoming has a throwback feel, with big porches, rocking chairs and wicker sofas with plump pillows, hydrangeas bursting with blooms. There are Victorian houses with the trim picked out in bright colors, a stately brick middle school and dive-in movie nights at the city swimming pool. There are no crime alerts posted, but there is a curfew for teenagers and information about coyotes. The pastry shop has been there since 1934, the cashier at the meat market told a customer in scrubs, “Have a great trip, doc!” as she walked out, and the Independence Day parade has no politicians, just kids decorating their bikes, performing skits and building floats. 
 
 The 8,400 residents volunteer so many hours that the city literally has to turn people away, Tetley said, from civic boards and committees and events. 
 
 There are many families who have lived here for generations, as well as newcomers, doctors and professors and others often drawn by the reputation of the public schools. All the students at the small schools are Wyoming residents, kids who grow up together as neighbors and classmates. 
 
 So when one of their own experienced something unthinkable, Wyoming pulled in close. 
 
 “We’re all just focused now on providing privacy and any assistance we can to the family,” Tetley said. “We’re continuing to pray. Everyone wants so desperately for this situation to turn out well.” 
 
 [Amidst all the joy at the University of Virginia’s commencement, one person is missing: Otto Warmbier] 
 
 Otto Warmbier was homecoming king and captain of the soccer team at Wyoming High. At the University of Virginia, he had a prestigious scholarship designed for the most “intellectually curious” students, a phrase that his friends said described him well. He had a rare sense of discipline, with a clearly delineated path to a future career in finance complete with a summer at the London School of Economics under his belt, enough credits to graduate as a sophomore, and, as a junior, the summer internship he wanted locked in by the fall. 
 
 “If he had an assignment, he could sit down for 15 hours and focus on it and get it done,” his father said last month. “That was his gift.” 
 
 Once the work was done, friends said, he could be just as intensely fun, coming up with schemes, laughing loudly, surprising them with odd but strangely perfect gifts from thrift stores, making everyone feel just how delighted he was to see them. 
 
 Otto Warmbier, left, with friends Emmett Saulnier and Ned Ende in May 2015 at the University of Virginia. (Sanjana Sekhar) 
 
 He had their backs. 
 
 And he wanted to see the world. 
 
 Warmbier had planned to visit North Korea for five days on his way to Hong Kong for a study-abroad trip with U-Va. 
 
 Undated video shows American student Otto Warmbier throwing snowballs in North Korea before his arrest for "committing hostile acts" against North Korea. (Austin Warmbier) 
 
 
 
 This picture taken by and released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency on March 16, 2016, shows a scene from the trial of Otto Warmbier, who was arrested for committing hostile acts against North Korea, at the supreme court in Pyongyang. (Agence France-Presse/KCNA) 
 
 He has received plenty of criticism from people who felt he should have had the common sense to stay away from a hostile country entirely. The actual repercussions were brutal: He was charged with “hostile acts against the state” and, in a semblance of a trial, sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. 
 
 Fred Warmbier said North Korea lures American tourists to the country with tour groups that post slick ads online proclaiming it’s a safe place to visit, and then “they take them hostage.” That’s what happened to his son, he said. 
 
 Otto Warmbier’s last contact with the outside world was on March 2 of last year. 
 
 [Worried about North Korea? Spare a thought for Otto Warmbier’s family.] 
 
 It was soon after the sham trial, apparently, that the athletic young student lapsed into a coma. 
 
 U.S. officials were not told about his condition for more than a year. The news triggered a swift response. Joseph Yun, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea, helped secure his evacuation this week. 
 
 A Gulfstream jet thundered onto a tarmac in Cincinnati late Tuesday night, and his family went on board to see him before he was carried out and rushed to the hospital. 
 
 [State Department official met with the three Americans still being held in North Korea] 
 
 
 
 Medical personnel and visitors gather at the nose of a transport plane carrying Otto Warmbier before he is transferred to an ambulance. (AP) 
 
 On Wednesday, Wyoming waited. 
 
 Children still clambered into emergency vehicles, honked horns and got sprayed by a firetruck hose at the city recreation center at a truck-touch event. Men mowed lawns. People played tennis at the city courts, watered their petunias, walked their dogs and babies, swam at the city pool, brought their kids to the civic center for a toy-brick-building festival in the evening. 
 
 But a small sign outside the civic center expressed the undercurrent: “Wyoming’s thoughts and prayers are with the Warmbier family.” 
 
 Denise Koesterman, of Cincinnati, hangs ribbons Tuesday in honor of Otto Warmbier’s homecoming in Wyoming, Ohio. (Bryan Woolston/Reuters) 
 
 On Wednesday evening, a car slowed on a nearby block and the driver called out, “What are those for?” to people tying blue and white ribbons, the school colors, to trees. 
 
 “For Otto Warmbier!” a teenage boy answered. 
 
 “Thank you for doing that,” the man answered. 
 
 A woman with the group said they were showing support for the family; they didn’t want to intrude at such a difficult time, and certainly didn’t want to be quoted by name. They just wanted the Warmbiers to see how many prayers were rising in the community, as they wait for news of his health. 
 
 Around another bend, a little before 7 p.m. as the sun was lowering into Wyoming’s leafy canopy, a woman and three children parked a van and jumped out. Tree by tree, pole by pole, they looped and knotted, looped and knotted. Then on to the next street, blue and white ribbons in hand. 
 
 That night, city officials decided to open up the civic center to live-stream the news conference so people in Wyoming could hear Fred Warmbier speak. Through word of mouth and social media, more than 300 gathered there Thursday morning, listening as he choked up and spoke directly to his son: “I love you, and I’m so crazy about you. I’m so glad you’re home.” 
 
 Tetley drove the family home from the news conference. A crowd lined the main street through town, holding their hands up in the Wyoming “W” shape, a high school cheer meant to show their respect for the Warmbiers. 
 
 The family got out. Fred Warmbier hugged some people, and there were “tears by everybody here,” Tetley said. “The family is just an incredible, beloved family.” 

 The father of an American student who was medically evacuated from North Korea in a coma has criticised the Obama administration for not doing enough to help him, and attack the Chinese tour company for “luring young Americans” to be imprisoned by the pariah state. 
 
 Fred Warmbier fought back tears as he told a press conference in Wyoming, Ohio that he was wearing the jacket that his son Otto, now 22, wore during his trial in March 2016. 
 
 And he spoke of his immense pride in his son, who landed back in the US on Tuesday night - describing him as “an adventure-seeking kid”. 
 
 “We’ve been brutalised for the past 18 months with no information, misinformation,” said Mr Warmbier. 
 
 “We are proud that our family is happy, positive people. We are thrilled our son is back on American soil.” 
 
 Otto was in North Korea on a tour organised by Young Pioneer tours – a Chinese company promoting trips to the rogue state. He was en route to Hong Kong, where he was due to complete a study abroad programme as part of his course at the University of Virginia. 

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– In a Thursday morning news conference, a rep for the University of Cincinnati Medical Center revealed little about its highest-profile patient, saying only that Otto Warmbier was stable and had experienced a "severe neurological injury." Some of the pieces got filled in this afternoon during a press conference with doctors, who say Warmbier hasn't spoken or "engaged in any purposeful movement" since returning to the US, CNN reports. More: Doctors describe Warmbier, who shows no sign of understanding what's being said to him, as in a state of "unresponsive wakefulness." Contradicting the official North Korean line, they say Warmbier shows no signs of botulism. Rather, doctors say Warmbier's injury is the type often caused by cardiopulmonary arrest brought on by intoxication or traumatic injury. Fred Warmbier had some harsh words for North Korea in that morning news conference. "They're brutal and they’re terroristic," he said, per the Washington Post. "We see the results of their actions, with Otto." Fred Warmbier said the family only learned of Otto's medical condition last Thursday, reports CNN. "Even if you believe their explanation of botulism and a sleeping pill causing a coma—and we don't—there is no excuse for any civilized nation to have kept his condition a secret and denied him top-notch medical care for so long." The Telegraph reports the elder Warmbier also accused the Chinese tour company that brought Otto into North Korea of "luring" Americans. "They advertise it as the safest tour ever. But they provide fodder for the North Koreans. They took him hostage. And the outcome is self-evident." Fred Warmbier offered his thanks to the Trump administration for getting Otto home, saying it was his understanding that the directive to secure Otto's release came from the president. As for the previous administration, it asked that the Warmbiers keep a "low profile. ... Earlier this year, Cindy and I decided the time for strategic patience was over," he said, per the Hill. When asked if Obama could have done more, he said, "I think the results speak for themselves." Danny Gratton, Warmbier's roommate in North Korea, spoke publicly for the first time Thursday, telling the Washington Post: "I think in the Western world we just can’t understand, we just can’t grasp, the evilness behind that dictatorship." He says Otto didn't do anything to deserve his treatment by the North Korean government.