Study into coma patients

PIONEERING brain-imaging techniques are being developed by Scottish scientists to gain a fresh insight into patients who have been left in a coma.

The new Coma Science Group at Aberdeen University aims to discover to what extent coma patients and those in a persistent vegetative state may be aware of their surroundings.

Patients are to be recruited to help in the research, which will involve intensive care and rehabilitation therapy clinicians, as well as university scientists.

Christian Schwarzbauer, professor of neuroimaging at Aberdeen University, is leading the research. He said: "It's possible that some of these patients are fully aware but are simply unable to move or control their movements."