Researchers have discovered the existence of a new type of brain wave, Nu waves, in a patient in a coma.
The brain has yet to unveil one of its many mysteries! Canadian researchers from the University of Montreal have published in Plos One, a study revealing the existence of a new type of active brain waves in a patient plunged into a deep coma. Until now, researchers and doctors thought that beyond the famous “flat line”, there was nothing. Yet even in the deepest comas, there is thought to be brain activity.
This is the case of a Romanian patient plunged into a medicated coma, whose electroencephalogram (EEG) showed unexplained traces, which drew the attention of a doctor from the Romanian “Reine-Marie” Medical Center. Seeking to understand this phenomenon, hitherto unobserved, the latter forwarded this file to researchers at the University of Montreal.
“We realized that in his brain, there was cerebral activity, called NU waves, little known until then,” says Florin Amzica, director of the neurosciences department at the Canadian university.
To push their research a little further, the scientists then decided to recreate the condition of this patient on the cat, an animal model established for studies in neurology. As a result, again, the team noted this same brain activity for 100% of cats in a state of deep coma, in the form of oscillations generated in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning processes. . In addition, these researchers claim that the waves observed in these cats were the same as those analyzed in the brain of the human patient.
Conclusion, “this astonishing discovery proves that the brain is capable, if the integrity of the nervous structures is preserved, of surviving an extremely deep stage of coma”, confides Daniel Kroeger, principal author of the study.
And for the scientist, this discovery opens up many avenues of research, “an organ or a muscle which remains inactive for a long time ends up atrophying with the time. It is plausible to think that it is the same for the brain kept for a long time in a state which corresponds to the flat electroencephalogram ”, he adds.
Another track opened by Daniel Kroeger., “We now have the opportunity to study the learning and memory of the hippocampus during a coma state. This will allow us to better understand them, ”he concludes.
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