Why Wallis Woke
MIT TECHNOLOGY
REVIEW, July
5 — Remember Terry Wallis, the
Their findings, reported the publication of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, could help doctors come up with new interventions to rouse minimally conscious patients back to full awareness.
The first scan the investigators
recorded — eight months after Wallis uttered his first word, “Mom” — showed
that Wallis had profound brain damage. Compared with the
brains of 20 normal subjects, both the overall structure and the neural fibers
of his brain showed severe degeneration. “That in itself is a major
piece of knowledge — that he could have this much injury and still have this
kind of recovery years later,” said lead investigator Nicholas Schiff, a
neurologist with
