Adrian Owen’s landmark research on consciousness in patients in vegetative state marks milestone
By Jeff Renaud, August 14, 2024 – Western News
While it has been 18 years since Adrian Owen discovered consciousness in patients in a vegetative state, hardly a day has gone by when Western University’s world-renowned neuroscientist doesn’t connect back to his Eureka moment.
And now, in a new study published Aug. 15 by The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the medical phenomenon officially gets a name: ‘cognitive motor dissociation.’ The paper is co-authored by Owen and more than 50 leading authorities, including neurologists, doctors, imaging experts and research scientists.
The acknowledgement of cognitive motor dissociation – labelled colloquially as ‘covert consciousness’ by the Curing Coma campaign – and its formal classification have been a long-time coming for Owen. When the discovery was first made public, some major luminaries in the field disavowed it, with some even calling it a one-off or a fluke.
“I have always believed in what we accomplished, but of course, it is rewarding to finally see it recognized in this way,” said Owen, a professor at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. “It was completely serendipitous that we just had the right patient at the right time. If she hadn’t been aware, then maybe we wouldn’t have kept going. But this particular woman’s brain activated in response to our new imaging test the very first time we tried it. And then, the story just exploded.”
Read the rest of this story on the Western University News website
