THE FUSE

In 2006, in the journal Science, neuroscientists unequivocally showed that hospitalized, unresponsive patients can actually communicate with the outside world through their brain activity alone. Ask a "yes" or "no" question, and receive an answer based on what the patient is visualizing or imagining inside: playing tennis for "yes," or walking through their home for "no," each inner experience yielding markedly distinct patterns of brain activity.