Assisted by tiny electrodes implanted in his brain, a man who had been in a coma-like state for six years regained the ability to drink from a cup, comb his hair and speak in short sentences, researchers said Wednesday.
Within hours of receiving what researchers described as a pacemaker for the brain, the man opened his eyes and tracked the movement of people in his hospital room.
More than a year later, the man's progress has continued, and recently he recited the first 16 words of the Pledge of Allegiance, researchers said.
The report, published in the journal Nature, challenges the belief that patients in minimally conscious states for prolonged periods are untreatable, researchers said.
"This is a real landmark," said neuroscientist Adrian Owen of the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, England, who was not involved in the research. "This suggests a possible treatment for some patients."
Researchers said the technology would not benefit every minimally conscious patient. The cause and severity of brain injuries vary widely, they said, and specific brain connections must remain intact for the treatment to work.
Still, "the report provides hope," said Dr. Paul Matthews, a professor of clinical neuroscience at Britain's Imperial College London who was not connected to the study. "It emphasizes that improvements can be made by patients even long after an injury."
In a minimally conscious state, a patient shows intermittent signs of awareness but is generally unable to communicate with the outside world. It is less severe than persistent vegetative state, in which a patient is awake but lacks awareness of self or surroundings.
The late Terri Schiavo had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years when her husband won a bitter court battle to have her feeding tube removed in 2005.
There are 100,000 to 300,000 minimally conscious patients in the U.S., researchers said, and most of them are cared for in long-term nursing homes.
The man in the study suffered severe brain injury after he was robbed, beaten and left for dead. Researchers did not identify him but said he is 38 and lives in an East Coast facility.
Before treatment, the man occasionally nodded his head and mouthed "yes" or "no" but seldom opened his eyes. Unable to swallow, he received nourishment through a feeding tube.
