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A single surgical procedure on an unidentified brain-damaged patient was the Story of the Day. The experiment was written up in the magazine Nature. By implanting electrodes into the thalamus portion of the brain, surgeons were able to revive the man after six years in a minimally conscious comatose state. ABC and NBC both led with the procedure. CBS chose Capitol Hill instead, where the Food & Drug Administration may be given the power to regulate the tobacco industry.

The mother of the patient, a 38-year-old nursing home patient disabled by a robber's assault, recounted how her son went from occasionally moving an eyelid, to now eating, drinking, expressing pain, tears, laughter and limited speech. NBC's Robert Bazell called it "an astounding case of science because it is an awakening based on a new understanding of the human brain." ABC's John McKenzie detailed the painstaking neurological procedure, ten hours in duration, with electrodes "traveling gingerly at a quarter of an inch an hour" and then "firing mild electrical impulses 100 times a second."

This type of deep-brain stimulation "has already been used to help Parkinson's patients," CBS' in-house physician Jon LaPook pointed out, and may now by used on those in "a minimally conscious state--devastating but not as severe as a coma or vegetative state." ABC and NBC estimated that there are 100,000 such patients nationwide; CBS cited 200,000. "Now there is more hope," stated CBS' LaPook…"There is real hope where there was none," asserted ABC's McKenzie…"This has got to be hopeful," NBC's Bazell suggested

Andrew Tyndall 8/6/07 7:42:59 pm

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