Inside STAT: Scientists envision a new way to detect consciousness

The standard method for detecting consciousness in the clinic often falls short. Patients might be aware of their surroundings even if they can't talk or move in response to a doctor's commands. Some 40 percent end up being misdiagnosed. So neuroscientists looking for a new way to find signs of consciousness came up with an idea. They put healthy people and patients reported to have varying levels of consciousness into an fMRI scanner to track blood flow in their brains, then asked them to picture themselves playing tennis. Those scans turned up patterns in brain activity that seemed to correlate with a person's level of consciousness. STAT’s Eric Boodman has the story here.