(NEW YORK)---Scientists have discovered small signs of awareness in some vegetative(植物人的) brain injury patients and have even communicated with one of them---findings that are beneficial to how to assess and care for such people. The new research suggests that standard tests may ignore patients who have some consciousness, and that someday some kind of communication may be possible. In the strongest example, a 29-year-old patient was able to answer yes-or-no questions by picturing specific scenes the doctors asked him to imagine. “We were stunned when this happened,” said one study author, Martin Monti of the Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. “I find it really amazing. This was a patient who was believed to be vegetative for five years.” Ever since a research paper four years ago described obvious signs of awareness in a vegetative patient, families of patients have been demanding brain scans, said Dr. James Bernat, a spokesman for the American Academy for Neurology. But experts said more study is needed before the specialized brain scans could be used in medical treatment. “It’s still a research tool,” Bernat said. Experts also pointed out that only a few tested patients showed evidence of awareness. And they said it is not clear what degree of consciousness and mental abilities the signs imply. They also noted that the positive signals appeared only in people with traumatic(外伤的) brain injury---not in patients whose brains had been lacking in oxygen, as can happen when the heart stops. The new study used brain scanning called functional MRI, for 23 patients in a vegetative state and 31 that are minimally(极微地) conscious. Patients are said to be in a vegetative state if they are tested and found unable to do such things as move on command or follow a moving object with their eyes. Minimally conscious patients show signs of awareness, but they are minimal and discontinuous. 小题1: What is the practical use of the research?
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