February 2, 2017.
A team of researchers from the Wyss Center in Geneva and the University of Tübingen in Germany managed to talk to paralyzed people. And the patient responses surprised the researchers.
Coming into contact with patients with Charcot’s disease
Talking with severely paralyzed people could be of great help to the patients themselves, but also to their loved ones. This communication will soon be possible. Researchers have indeed managed to communicate with patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Charcot’s disease. It is a neurodegenerative disease, which gradually affects neurons and leads to muscle weakness and then paralysis.
These four patients could no longer even communicate with their eyelids. To get in touch with them, the researchers measured the levels of oxygen present in their brains. This was made possible by a very sophisticated device that uses electroencephalography which measures the electrical activity of the brain. These measurements allowed researchers to understand when patients answered “yes” or “no” to the questions they asked them.
Patients had surprising responses
According to Prof. Niels Birbaumer who led this work, this experiment contradicts the “ theory that communication is impossible with people with locked-in », Also called confinement syndrome. ” If we can replicate these results with more patients, I think we can re-establish communication with people in a locked state. by neurodegenerative diseases “, he added.
What’s interesting about this study, published in the journal PLoS Biologyis that the patients had unexpected responses. When the researchers asked one of the patients if her daughter should marry her boyfriend, the patient answered “no” nine times. And when asked if they were happy, all four patients replied: “yes”. A great consolation for loved ones.
Marine Rondot
