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DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1602870
Mythology of the Vegetative State
Publication History
Publication Date:
26 April 2017 (online)
Vegetative state (VS; also known as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, UWS) is a mysterious condition: wakefulness, but no subjective awareness. Thus, it is not surprising that a lot of myths have been created around this state. In the present talk, three classes of these myths are analyzed:
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Antique myths that have an historical value, but nobody believes in them any more:
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a. VS patients are decorticized either in the morphological or in the functional sense.
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Myths of an average age, which still live in the brains of relevant persons, although they have already been refused by modern data:
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a. Cortical processing in VS happens only in the primary cortical areas.
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b. All VS patients are similar and remain in the same functional state all the time.
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c. There is a clear qualitative borderline between VS and the minimally conscious state.
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d. After 1 year, a VS is “permanent.”
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Modern myths, which have only appeared in the recent time due to the modern technologies and novel data (more exactly, due to the false interpretation of the novel data):
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a. Awareness can be operationally defined as the ability to follow verbal instructions.
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b. Modern methods of neuroscience permit us to observe consciousness directly in a patient’s brain.
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