I thought those functions were controlled by the brain, not the stem.
Like I said, I’m at a loss to understand these things.
The brain stem is a pretty complex piece of machinery, it contains the midbrain, medulla oblongata, and the pons and is responsible for a lot of these basic functions. The medulla, for example, controls respiration and heart rate. The pons controls things like facial expressions, digestion. Interestingly enough, the midbrain controls awareness. The child may be able to not only survive but have basic environmental awareness. What will be lacking unless there is a compensation that takes place, will be memory and processing, sight, hearing, etc. In other words, he will have very basic survival functions.
Doesn’t matter how, it just matters that he has survived for this long, and he’s able to be loved, unconditionally, by his parents. They’ll be sad when he dies, but they’ll know that they did everything they possibly could for him. And who knows, maybe he DOES know what they’re doing, but just doesn’t have the ability to express that.