Neural Voices of Patients with Severe Brain Injury?

Some brain-injured patients who appear unresponsive can covertly answer simple questions through neuronal responses, raising the possibility of including them in low-stakes medical decisions to protect their autonomy. The warrant for crediting these neuronal responses is analyzed from neurology, bioethics, law, and philosophy of mind. Nonreductive physicalism's causal exclusion problem casts doubt on interpreting neural activity as indicating a conscious response, while a hylomorphism-inspired mind-body powers model supports such interpretation.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Studies have shown that some covertly conscious brain-injured patients, who are behaviorally unresponsive, can reply to simple questions via neuronal responses. Given the possibility of such neuronal responses, Andrew Peterson et al. have argued that there is warrant for some covertly conscious patients being included in low-stakes medical decisions using neuronal responses, which could protect and enhance their autonomy. The justification for giving credence to alleged neuronal responses must be analyzed from various perspectives, including neurology, bioethics, law, and as we suggest, philosophy of mind. In this article, we analyze the warrant for giving credence to neuronal responses from two different views in philosophy of mind. We consider how nonreductive physicalism's causal exclusion problem elicits doubt about interpreting neural activity as indicating a conscious response. By contrast, such an interpretation is supported by the mind-body powers model of neural correlates of consciousness inspired by hylomorphism.