According to British and Argentine researchers, patients who are minimally conscious or in a vegetative state can still learn.
The researchers tested the Pavlovian conditioning on three groups of people, those who were awake and healthy, those who were under anesthesia and 22 patients after a coma, who were either in a vegetative state or minimally conscious.
The method was to listen to a note and then send a breathe of air on the eye. Individuals awake, closed their eyes when they heard the note, in anticipation of the breathe of air. The people under anesthesia had no reaction, but 15 of the other 22 patients showed muscular reactions after they heard the note.
According to the paper in Nature Neuroscience, this proves that the brain is capable of learning in an unconscious state. This discovery may help doctors diagnose the state of consciousness of patients with brain lesions. Normally, this diagnosis is difficult to make.