Device wakes man with severe brain injuries

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A man with severe brain injuries who spent six years in a near-vegetative state can now chew his food, watch a movie and talk with family thanks to a brain pacemaker that may change the way such patients are treated, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The 38-year-old man is the first person in a minimally conscious state to be treated with deep-brain stimulation, a treatment that uses a pacemaker and two electrodes to send impulses into a part of the brain regulating consciousness.

His awakening may change the way doctors think about people with severe brain injuries, who are largely unresponsive but still have some level of consciousness. These patients typically spend the rest of their lives in nursing homes, with little efforts at rehabilitation and slim chance of recovery.

"This is a group of patients that are really, in many ways, forgotten about," said Dr. Ali Rezai, director of the Cleveland Clinic's Center for Neurological Restoration.

"We have to do more research, obviously, but I think down the line it will change the way we are treating or even looking at people with severe brain injury."

Rezai and a team of specialists from the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute-Center for Head Injuries in Edison, New Jersey, and the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York detailed the patient's progress in the journal Nature.

They used a device made by Medtronic Inc.. Like a heart pacemaker, the device is implanted in the chest under the skin, but electrodes deliver stimulation to precisely targeted areas deep in the brain.

Researchers think the electrical stimulation may be enhancing the brain circuits that are still capable of functioning.