This is about the article:
http://www.startribune.com/science/83506247.html?page=1&c=y
Which is about studies contducted that say that people in "vegetative" states actually have brain activity nd can communicate through machines.
Is it really ok to use MRIs and other tools to allow coma patients to "speak" through them? As the article states, there are ethical questions about whether or not is is ethical to rely on these answers form serious questions concerning the patient. For one, we don't know for certain that these answers are truely what we interpret them to be. For all we know they could mean something else completely different. The techniques and studies are not that reliable. I don't think that these studies can truely be used until someone wakes up from their coma and confirms that that was really what they were "saying" then.
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I agree that we cannot know forsure what the coma patients are communicating via MRIs, or if they even are, but isn't a large part of those studies significant because it proves that there is some brain activity? It seems to me that the studies are less about deciphering what someone is actually saying and more about showing that there is some cognitive activity going on. So is the part of the article that you're disagreeing with that the brain waves actually are communication or proof that coma patients are still at least partially cognicent, or do you just disagree with trying to use those brain waves and developing technology to turn the brain waves into speech of some sort?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that you may want to address some of the ethical questions that the article presents here. It seems that you may also wish to address your concerns as far as reliability is concerned. What is it that you don't think is reliable? You should voice it.
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