A team from the University of California, led by Dr. Martin Monti, succeeded in activating the brain of a 25-year-old man recovering from a coma using ultrasound waves. At that time, Monti acknowledged that the team was perhaps a bit lucky in their first experiment, but he also admitted that the result was encouraging.
Today, Dr. Monti and his team have made remarkable and rapid progress, reporting that they have done the same with three other patients with severe brain injuries. According to the scientists, the patients were in a coma known as a minimally conscious state for an extended period. Two of the new patients made astonishing progress using the same ultrasound technique regarding brain activation. Dr. Monti stated that the new results were more significant than the previous ones, as the chronic patients were less likely to recover spontaneously compared to the patient treated in 2016. Dr. Monti said, "For these new cases, it is unlikely that their outcomes are the result of spontaneous recovery."
It is noteworthy that a recently published study discusses three people who received treatment, but the only individual who did not benefit was a 58-year-old man who had been in a car accident five and a half years ago and had very limited awareness. One of the other participants was a 56-year-old man who suffered a stroke that led to a minimally conscious state, rendering him unable to communicate for over 14 months. After the first two treatment sessions, the man was able to consistently respond to two different commands for the first time since the accident. He could drop and catch a ball and look at separate pictures of his relatives when their names were mentioned, as well as shake his head to indicate yes or no when asked questions like, "Is your name...?" and "Is your wife's name...?"
In the days following the second treatment session, the man showed, for the first time since entering the coma, the ability to use a pen to draw on paper and lifted a glass to his mouth, communicating and answering some questions. Monti stated that these behaviors are diagnostic signs of emerging consciousness disorder. The last patient was a 50-year-old woman who had been in a lower level of awareness for more than two and a half years after experiencing a cardiac arrest. According to her family members, after a few days of her first treatment session, she was able to recognize a pencil, a comb, and other objects.
