[Rebel_Ace]

I don't want to be wet blanket here, but here is the nagging doubt I have about this story:

Is the doctor running the "communication test" the ONLY person that can "Interpret" the patient's responses? If so, then this is no better than the "guided writing" and other supposed methods of reaching brain damaged people.

It just turns out that the person "interpreting" the results is simply the one supplying the answers.

[wideminded]

Is the doctor running the "communication test" the ONLY person that can "Interpret" the patient's responses?

I was wondering the same thing, but based on some clues from a sidebar in the article, it looks like there is real communication:

"The patients were repeatedly asked to imagine playing tennis or walking around their home

"In healthy volunteers each produces a distinct pattern of activity, in the premotor cortex for the first task and the parahippocampal gyrus for the second

"It allowed the researchers to put a series of yes or no questions to severely brain-injured patients. A minority were able to answer by using the power of thought"