There’s a paper in Nature this week detailing how doctors used an implant to increase the level of brain function in a man in a minimally conscious state. (Coverage from News@Nature, NYT, others). This is exciting news, but it does raise a few questions:
-As some of the coverage has asked: Are we stepping into an ethical gray area by doing experimental procedures on people who are not able to consent?
-Every few months there’s some kind of report about doctors finding a new way to prompt, revive or observe activity in the brain’s of people who otherwise would be in the little-or-no-hope category. Should these research developments push us to view the status of people in unconscious states differently?
-This most recent development was observed in only one patient, but it will get a lot of spread in the press (as a lot of these stories do). How should doctors and ethicists approach the conversations that will inevitably come up now with the families of patients in these states? How do you help families balance hope and reality?
-Greg Dahlmann