Communications Department
202.626.8825
mediarelations@nrlc.org
By Nancy Valko Editor’s note. This appeared at Nancy’s blog. All emphases are Nancy’s. People with severe brain injuries from accidents, strokes, illness, etc. are often in comas at first. If they don’t die or spontaneously wake up, they can progress to a “persistent...
By Xavier Symons A 35-year-old man who had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years after a car accident has shown signs of consciousness after neurosurgeons implanted a nerve stimulator into his chest. The findings, reported this week in the journal Current...
By Dave Andrusko If there is anything we’ve learned in the last decade about the adaptability and recuperative powers of the human brain it is that the “givens” about how the brain responds to massive injury continue to fall, one by one. Near the top of the list is...
By Wesley Smith Ever since Terri Schiavo, writing about the wrongness of removing feeding tubes from patients diagnosed with persistent unconsciousness (PVS)–we should never call them “vegetables,” a term as denigrating and dehumanizing a racial epithet–is like...
By Dave Andrusko Our faithful readers know that we have posted many, many accounts not only of the recovery of individual patients in a so-called Persistent Vegetative State but also about how researchers are demonstrating how common it is to mis-categorize severely...
By Dave Andrusko Few topics intrigue me more than why “trends” develop, or, better put, why “givens” that have gone essentially unchallenged suddenly begin to lose their authority. We’ve written about many of them at NRL News Today, including the...
By Wesley J. Smith Count on the media to miss the obvious angle when it comes to the culture of death. The story of Martin Pistorius–believed falsely to have been unconscious for 12 years–is all over the mainstream media. NPR is typical: His parents, Rodney and...
By Dave Andrusko Last week the UK Independent newspaper published an article written by Science Editor Steve Connor, exploring a fascinating study by scientists at Cambridge University which found “Severely brain-damaged patients in a persistent vegetative...
By Dave Andrusko Earlier today we posted a story about how researchers at Cambridge found ‘hidden brain signatures’ of consciousness in patients said to be in a persistent vegetative state. It is just the latest reminder that often times we don’t know what we...
By Dave Andrusko For those follow NRL News Today, the name Adrian Owen will probably ring a bell. He has done some of the most spectacular work, demonstrating that some patients supposedly in a “persistent vegetative state’ (PVS) are actually aware. We last...