However, much of what doctors once perceived as wishful thinking from families actually has been supported by multiple neuroscience methodologies. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), a brain scan sensitive to white matter structure that researchers use to study connectivity, was used with early MCS patients to reveal the surprising plasticity due to the formation of new connections between old neurons. Furthermore, a breakthrough functional imaging study published in 2006 by Adrian Owen and colleagues showed integrative reactions in the brain of a young women who, behaviorally, was believed to be in a PVS. When the woman was given verbal instructions inside the scanner to imagine herself playing tennis and walking through her home, Owen observed activation in motor and spatial regions of her brain, respectively, which was consistent with brain activity in healthy controls.
Taking into account this experimental evidence about the minimally conscious brain, Fins argued that patients face the challenge of having “dynamic brains in a static healthcare system.” As scientists and physicians learn more about the remarkable cognitive abilities of MCS patients, there is a growing obligation for neuroscience to help these persons, otherwise sequestered from the broader human community, communicate with the outside world. To address the challenges of MCS, Fins advocates for the use of neuroimaging as a neuroprosthetic communication tool; the administration of drugs that can alter brain states and speed the recovery of MCS patients; and the application of thalamic deep brain stimulation as a therapeutic intervention.