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Questões de Inglês
19.971 Questões
Questão 11 152454
IFPE Superior 2017
TEXT 4
SYRIA: THE STORY OF THE CONFLICT
More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in fourand- a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a fullscale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other - as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State.
Humanitarian Crisis
More than 4.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and children. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have struggled to cope with one of the largest refugee exoduses in recent history. About 10% of Syrian refugees have sought safety in Europe, sowing political divisions as countries argue over sharing the burden.
A further 6.5 million people are internally displaced inside Syria, 1.2 million were driven from their homes in 2015 alone.
The UN says it will need $3.2bn to help the 13.5 million people, including 6 million children, who will require some form of humanitarian assistance inside Syria in 2016. About 70% of the population is without access to adequate drinking water, one in three people are unable to meet their basic food needs, and more than 2 million children are out of school, and four out of five people live in poverty.
The warring parties have compounded the problems by refusing humanitarian agencies access to civilians in need. Up to 4.5 million people in Syria live in hard-to-reach areas, including nearly 400,000 people in 15 besieged locations who do not have access to life-saving aid.
RODGERS, Lucy, et al. Syria: the story of the conflict. Disponível em:<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middleeast- 26116868>. Acesso: 05 out. 2016.
Syria has faced a war for
Questão 19 151606
FMP 2017THE BRAIN
The brain controls all the body’s functions – from
consciousness and heart rate to thinking, memory
and emotion. It is the most complex thing we know of,
and the gaps in our knowledge about how it works are
vast. Neuroscientists have the daunting job of making
sense of this complicated organ – to provide insights
into our minds and behaviour and to find ways to
tackle debilitating brain diseases and injuries. Brain
injuries can occur in many ways, such as through
accidents, stroke or infections. The rehabilitation
group at the Medical Research Council Cognition
and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge specialises
in helping people with brain injuries to compensate
for cognitive problems and to cope with everyday life.
Its work includes developing new ways to measure
the problems faced by people with brain injuries and
developing new treatments. The scientists are also
interested in finding out more about how people
recover from brain injury and related memory loss.
The brain stem controls our core body functions –
the things our body must do unconsciously to keep us
alive, such as altering our heart beat and regulating
our blood pressure and body temperature. It also
controls functions such as alertness, swallowing,
digestion and breathing.
Consciousness is part of what makes each of us
unique. It encompasses many of our ideas, thoughts,
feelings, plans and memories. Conscious thought is
different from the unconscious workings of the brain
– which enable us to breathe, walk and talk and our
hearts to beat automatically. There are two aspects to
consciousness: awareness and wakefulness.
— Awareness refers to our internal, subjective
experience. It includes self awareness – the ability to
understand that you exist, as an individual, separate
from other people and with private thoughts. It also
includes awareness of the relationship between
oneself and one’s environment through use of our
senses and by thinking about ideas and acting upon
them using judgement.
— Wakefulness refers to different levels of
conscious awareness. Each day we experience a
spectrum of wakefulness, from full attentiveness, such
as if we are involved in an interesting conversation,
through inattentiveness, drowsiness and normal
sleep. Following some types of brain injury or during
anaesthesia people can’t be woken: they have a lower
level of wakefulness. Brain death lies at the far end of
this spectrum.
These two aspects of consciousness normally go
hand-in-hand; we don’t expect to have an interesting
conversation with someone who is asleep. However,
we can possess awareness when we are asleep, for
example when we dream.
Where does consciousness come from?
Scientists have amassed much evidence linking
different aspects of consciousness to our brain. We
now know that consciousness requires many parts of
the brain to work together. Parts of the cerebral cortex
act together to produce our thoughts and experiences.
A functioning thalamus is also required to produce
wakefulness – we know this because if a part of the
thalamus called the centromedian nucleus becomes
damaged, we become unconscious.
Unconsciousness can also be caused by
anaesthesia, or changes to the body’s internal
environment such as a rise or drop in core body
temperature or a lack of oxygen. A prolonged period
of unconsciousness is known as a coma. Sometimes,
after a severe brain injury, a person can enter a
vegetative state (VS). Unlike coma patients, VS
patients show normal wake/sleep cycles, but even
when they are awake they show no external sign of
awareness. When all electrical activity in the brain
stops irreversibly, this is known as brain death.
Scientists at the MRC Cognition and Brain
Sciences Unit in Cambridge study patients with
disorders of consciousness. Their work recently
revealed that a woman who was diagnosed as
being in a persistent vegetative state following
a car accident was aware of her surroundings.
Working with colleagues in Belgium, the scientists
used functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to map the woman’s brain activity. She was
physically unresponsive and fulfilled all the criteria
for a diagnosis of vegetative state according to
international guidelines. But scans showed that her
brain responded to speech. Her brain also actively
processed the meaning of sentences, becoming
more active when she heard sentences containing
words with several meanings, like ‘rain’ and ‘reign’.
When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving
around her home, brain scans showed that the
woman could do this, activating various areas of her
brain in the same way as healthy volunteers. “These
are startling results. They confirm that, despite the
diagnosis of vegetative state, this patient retained
the ability to understand spoken commands and
to respond to them through her brain activity,” said
one of the researchers. “Her decision to work with
us represents a clear act of intent which confirmed
beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of
herself and her surroundings.”
Doctors use different levels of sedation to reduce
people’s awareness of their bodies and surroundings.
For example, high levels of anaesthetic drugs cause
general anaesthesia: a complete loss of consciousness.
Another team of scientists at the MRC Cognition and
Brain Sciences Unit used fMRI to study how sedation
affects the brain’s processing of speech. Working with
researchers at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in
Cambridge, they found that during heavy sedation,
volunteers’ brains still responded to the sounds of
speech but they were unable to process or remember
it. The findings have important implications for the care
of patients undergoing general anaesthesia or coming
out of a coma.
Available at: <http://www.mrc.ac.uk/publications/browse/the-brain-mrc- -research-for-lifelong-health/>. Retrieved on: 28 June 2016. Adapted.
In the text fragment ““Her decision to work with us represents a clear act of intent which confirmed beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of herself and her surroundings”” (lines 100-103) the word which refers to
Questão 17 151604
FMP 2017THE BRAIN
The brain controls all the body’s functions – from
consciousness and heart rate to thinking, memory
and emotion. It is the most complex thing we know of,
and the gaps in our knowledge about how it works are
vast. Neuroscientists have the daunting job of making
sense of this complicated organ – to provide insights
into our minds and behaviour and to find ways to
tackle debilitating brain diseases and injuries. Brain
injuries can occur in many ways, such as through
accidents, stroke or infections. The rehabilitation
group at the Medical Research Council Cognition
and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge specialises
in helping people with brain injuries to compensate
for cognitive problems and to cope with everyday life.
Its work includes developing new ways to measure
the problems faced by people with brain injuries and
developing new treatments. The scientists are also
interested in finding out more about how people
recover from brain injury and related memory loss.
The brain stem controls our core body functions –
the things our body must do unconsciously to keep us
alive, such as altering our heart beat and regulating
our blood pressure and body temperature. It also
controls functions such as alertness, swallowing,
digestion and breathing.
Consciousness is part of what makes each of us
unique. It encompasses many of our ideas, thoughts,
feelings, plans and memories. Conscious thought is
different from the unconscious workings of the brain
– which enable us to breathe, walk and talk and our
hearts to beat automatically. There are two aspects to
consciousness: awareness and wakefulness.
— Awareness refers to our internal, subjective
experience. It includes self awareness – the ability to
understand that you exist, as an individual, separate
from other people and with private thoughts. It also
includes awareness of the relationship between
oneself and one’s environment through use of our
senses and by thinking about ideas and acting upon
them using judgement.
— Wakefulness refers to different levels of
conscious awareness. Each day we experience a
spectrum of wakefulness, from full attentiveness, such
as if we are involved in an interesting conversation,
through inattentiveness, drowsiness and normal
sleep. Following some types of brain injury or during
anaesthesia people can’t be woken: they have a lower
level of wakefulness. Brain death lies at the far end of
this spectrum.
These two aspects of consciousness normally go
hand-in-hand; we don’t expect to have an interesting
conversation with someone who is asleep. However,
we can possess awareness when we are asleep, for
example when we dream.
Where does consciousness come from?
Scientists have amassed much evidence linking
different aspects of consciousness to our brain. We
now know that consciousness requires many parts of
the brain to work together. Parts of the cerebral cortex
act together to produce our thoughts and experiences.
A functioning thalamus is also required to produce
wakefulness – we know this because if a part of the
thalamus called the centromedian nucleus becomes
damaged, we become unconscious.
Unconsciousness can also be caused by
anaesthesia, or changes to the body’s internal
environment such as a rise or drop in core body
temperature or a lack of oxygen. A prolonged period
of unconsciousness is known as a coma. Sometimes,
after a severe brain injury, a person can enter a
vegetative state (VS). Unlike coma patients, VS
patients show normal wake/sleep cycles, but even
when they are awake they show no external sign of
awareness. When all electrical activity in the brain
stops irreversibly, this is known as brain death.
Scientists at the MRC Cognition and Brain
Sciences Unit in Cambridge study patients with
disorders of consciousness. Their work recently
revealed that a woman who was diagnosed as
being in a persistent vegetative state following
a car accident was aware of her surroundings.
Working with colleagues in Belgium, the scientists
used functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to map the woman’s brain activity. She was
physically unresponsive and fulfilled all the criteria
for a diagnosis of vegetative state according to
international guidelines. But scans showed that her
brain responded to speech. Her brain also actively
processed the meaning of sentences, becoming
more active when she heard sentences containing
words with several meanings, like ‘rain’ and ‘reign’.
When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving
around her home, brain scans showed that the
woman could do this, activating various areas of her
brain in the same way as healthy volunteers. “These
are startling results. They confirm that, despite the
diagnosis of vegetative state, this patient retained
the ability to understand spoken commands and
to respond to them through her brain activity,” said
one of the researchers. “Her decision to work with
us represents a clear act of intent which confirmed
beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of
herself and her surroundings.”
Doctors use different levels of sedation to reduce
people’s awareness of their bodies and surroundings.
For example, high levels of anaesthetic drugs cause
general anaesthesia: a complete loss of consciousness.
Another team of scientists at the MRC Cognition and
Brain Sciences Unit used fMRI to study how sedation
affects the brain’s processing of speech. Working with
researchers at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in
Cambridge, they found that during heavy sedation,
volunteers’ brains still responded to the sounds of
speech but they were unable to process or remember
it. The findings have important implications for the care
of patients undergoing general anaesthesia or coming
out of a coma.
Available at: <http://www.mrc.ac.uk/publications/browse/the-brain-mrc- -research-for-lifelong-health/>. Retrieved on: 28 June 2016. Adapted.
In the text fragment “Unlike coma patients, VS patients show normal wake/sleep cycles, but even when they are awake they show no external sign of awareness” (lines 71-74), the word in bold means the same as
Questão 16 151603
FMP 2017THE BRAIN
The brain controls all the body’s functions – from
consciousness and heart rate to thinking, memory
and emotion. It is the most complex thing we know of,
and the gaps in our knowledge about how it works are
vast. Neuroscientists have the daunting job of making
sense of this complicated organ – to provide insights
into our minds and behaviour and to find ways to
tackle debilitating brain diseases and injuries. Brain
injuries can occur in many ways, such as through
accidents, stroke or infections. The rehabilitation
group at the Medical Research Council Cognition
and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge specialises
in helping people with brain injuries to compensate
for cognitive problems and to cope with everyday life.
Its work includes developing new ways to measure
the problems faced by people with brain injuries and
developing new treatments. The scientists are also
interested in finding out more about how people
recover from brain injury and related memory loss.
The brain stem controls our core body functions –
the things our body must do unconsciously to keep us
alive, such as altering our heart beat and regulating
our blood pressure and body temperature. It also
controls functions such as alertness, swallowing,
digestion and breathing.
Consciousness is part of what makes each of us
unique. It encompasses many of our ideas, thoughts,
feelings, plans and memories. Conscious thought is
different from the unconscious workings of the brain
– which enable us to breathe, walk and talk and our
hearts to beat automatically. There are two aspects to
consciousness: awareness and wakefulness.
— Awareness refers to our internal, subjective
experience. It includes self awareness – the ability to
understand that you exist, as an individual, separate
from other people and with private thoughts. It also
includes awareness of the relationship between
oneself and one’s environment through use of our
senses and by thinking about ideas and acting upon
them using judgement.
— Wakefulness refers to different levels of
conscious awareness. Each day we experience a
spectrum of wakefulness, from full attentiveness, such
as if we are involved in an interesting conversation,
through inattentiveness, drowsiness and normal
sleep. Following some types of brain injury or during
anaesthesia people can’t be woken: they have a lower
level of wakefulness. Brain death lies at the far end of
this spectrum.
These two aspects of consciousness normally go
hand-in-hand; we don’t expect to have an interesting
conversation with someone who is asleep. However,
we can possess awareness when we are asleep, for
example when we dream.
Where does consciousness come from?
Scientists have amassed much evidence linking
different aspects of consciousness to our brain. We
now know that consciousness requires many parts of
the brain to work together. Parts of the cerebral cortex
act together to produce our thoughts and experiences.
A functioning thalamus is also required to produce
wakefulness – we know this because if a part of the
thalamus called the centromedian nucleus becomes
damaged, we become unconscious.
Unconsciousness can also be caused by
anaesthesia, or changes to the body’s internal
environment such as a rise or drop in core body
temperature or a lack of oxygen. A prolonged period
of unconsciousness is known as a coma. Sometimes,
after a severe brain injury, a person can enter a
vegetative state (VS). Unlike coma patients, VS
patients show normal wake/sleep cycles, but even
when they are awake they show no external sign of
awareness. When all electrical activity in the brain
stops irreversibly, this is known as brain death.
Scientists at the MRC Cognition and Brain
Sciences Unit in Cambridge study patients with
disorders of consciousness. Their work recently
revealed that a woman who was diagnosed as
being in a persistent vegetative state following
a car accident was aware of her surroundings.
Working with colleagues in Belgium, the scientists
used functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to map the woman’s brain activity. She was
physically unresponsive and fulfilled all the criteria
for a diagnosis of vegetative state according to
international guidelines. But scans showed that her
brain responded to speech. Her brain also actively
processed the meaning of sentences, becoming
more active when she heard sentences containing
words with several meanings, like ‘rain’ and ‘reign’.
When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving
around her home, brain scans showed that the
woman could do this, activating various areas of her
brain in the same way as healthy volunteers. “These
are startling results. They confirm that, despite the
diagnosis of vegetative state, this patient retained
the ability to understand spoken commands and
to respond to them through her brain activity,” said
one of the researchers. “Her decision to work with
us represents a clear act of intent which confirmed
beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of
herself and her surroundings.”
Doctors use different levels of sedation to reduce
people’s awareness of their bodies and surroundings.
For example, high levels of anaesthetic drugs cause
general anaesthesia: a complete loss of consciousness.
Another team of scientists at the MRC Cognition and
Brain Sciences Unit used fMRI to study how sedation
affects the brain’s processing of speech. Working with
researchers at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in
Cambridge, they found that during heavy sedation,
volunteers’ brains still responded to the sounds of
speech but they were unable to process or remember
it. The findings have important implications for the care
of patients undergoing general anaesthesia or coming
out of a coma.
Available at: <http://www.mrc.ac.uk/publications/browse/the-brain-mrc- -research-for-lifelong-health/>. Retrieved on: 28 June 2016. Adapted.
In the fragment “Scientists have amassed much evidence linking different aspects of consciousness to our brain” (lines 56-57), the verb form in blank indicates scientists
Questão 14 151600
FMP 2017THE BRAIN
The brain controls all the body’s functions – from
consciousness and heart rate to thinking, memory
and emotion. It is the most complex thing we know of,
and the gaps in our knowledge about how it works are
vast. Neuroscientists have the daunting job of making
sense of this complicated organ – to provide insights
into our minds and behaviour and to find ways to
tackle debilitating brain diseases and injuries. Brain
injuries can occur in many ways, such as through
accidents, stroke or infections. The rehabilitation
group at the Medical Research Council Cognition
and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge specialises
in helping people with brain injuries to compensate
for cognitive problems and to cope with everyday life.
Its work includes developing new ways to measure
the problems faced by people with brain injuries and
developing new treatments. The scientists are also
interested in finding out more about how people
recover from brain injury and related memory loss.
The brain stem controls our core body functions –
the things our body must do unconsciously to keep us
alive, such as altering our heart beat and regulating
our blood pressure and body temperature. It also
controls functions such as alertness, swallowing,
digestion and breathing.
Consciousness is part of what makes each of us
unique. It encompasses many of our ideas, thoughts,
feelings, plans and memories. Conscious thought is
different from the unconscious workings of the brain
– which enable us to breathe, walk and talk and our
hearts to beat automatically. There are two aspects to
consciousness: awareness and wakefulness.
— Awareness refers to our internal, subjective
experience. It includes self awareness – the ability to
understand that you exist, as an individual, separate
from other people and with private thoughts. It also
includes awareness of the relationship between
oneself and one’s environment through use of our
senses and by thinking about ideas and acting upon
them using judgement.
— Wakefulness refers to different levels of
conscious awareness. Each day we experience a
spectrum of wakefulness, from full attentiveness, such
as if we are involved in an interesting conversation,
through inattentiveness, drowsiness and normal
sleep. Following some types of brain injury or during
anaesthesia people can’t be woken: they have a lower
level of wakefulness. Brain death lies at the far end of
this spectrum.
These two aspects of consciousness normally go
hand-in-hand; we don’t expect to have an interesting
conversation with someone who is asleep. However,
we can possess awareness when we are asleep, for
example when we dream.
Where does consciousness come from?
Scientists have amassed much evidence linking
different aspects of consciousness to our brain. We
now know that consciousness requires many parts of
the brain to work together. Parts of the cerebral cortex
act together to produce our thoughts and experiences.
A functioning thalamus is also required to produce
wakefulness – we know this because if a part of the
thalamus called the centromedian nucleus becomes
damaged, we become unconscious.
Unconsciousness can also be caused by
anaesthesia, or changes to the body’s internal
environment such as a rise or drop in core body
temperature or a lack of oxygen. A prolonged period
of unconsciousness is known as a coma. Sometimes,
after a severe brain injury, a person can enter a
vegetative state (VS). Unlike coma patients, VS
patients show normal wake/sleep cycles, but even
when they are awake they show no external sign of
awareness. When all electrical activity in the brain
stops irreversibly, this is known as brain death.
Scientists at the MRC Cognition and Brain
Sciences Unit in Cambridge study patients with
disorders of consciousness. Their work recently
revealed that a woman who was diagnosed as
being in a persistent vegetative state following
a car accident was aware of her surroundings.
Working with colleagues in Belgium, the scientists
used functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to map the woman’s brain activity. She was
physically unresponsive and fulfilled all the criteria
for a diagnosis of vegetative state according to
international guidelines. But scans showed that her
brain responded to speech. Her brain also actively
processed the meaning of sentences, becoming
more active when she heard sentences containing
words with several meanings, like ‘rain’ and ‘reign’.
When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving
around her home, brain scans showed that the
woman could do this, activating various areas of her
brain in the same way as healthy volunteers. “These
are startling results. They confirm that, despite the
diagnosis of vegetative state, this patient retained
the ability to understand spoken commands and
to respond to them through her brain activity,” said
one of the researchers. “Her decision to work with
us represents a clear act of intent which confirmed
beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of
herself and her surroundings.”
Doctors use different levels of sedation to reduce
people’s awareness of their bodies and surroundings.
For example, high levels of anaesthetic drugs cause
general anaesthesia: a complete loss of consciousness.
Another team of scientists at the MRC Cognition and
Brain Sciences Unit used fMRI to study how sedation
affects the brain’s processing of speech. Working with
researchers at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in
Cambridge, they found that during heavy sedation,
volunteers’ brains still responded to the sounds of
speech but they were unable to process or remember
it. The findings have important implications for the care
of patients undergoing general anaesthesia or coming
out of a coma.
Available at: <http://www.mrc.ac.uk/publications/browse/the-brain-mrc- -research-for-lifelong-health/>. Retrieved on: 28 June 2016. Adapted.
The core body functions (line 20) include
Questão 13 151599
FMP 2017THE BRAIN
The brain controls all the body’s functions – from
consciousness and heart rate to thinking, memory
and emotion. It is the most complex thing we know of,
and the gaps in our knowledge about how it works are
vast. Neuroscientists have the daunting job of making
sense of this complicated organ – to provide insights
into our minds and behaviour and to find ways to
tackle debilitating brain diseases and injuries. Brain
injuries can occur in many ways, such as through
accidents, stroke or infections. The rehabilitation
group at the Medical Research Council Cognition
and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge specialises
in helping people with brain injuries to compensate
for cognitive problems and to cope with everyday life.
Its work includes developing new ways to measure
the problems faced by people with brain injuries and
developing new treatments. The scientists are also
interested in finding out more about how people
recover from brain injury and related memory loss.
The brain stem controls our core body functions –
the things our body must do unconsciously to keep us
alive, such as altering our heart beat and regulating
our blood pressure and body temperature. It also
controls functions such as alertness, swallowing,
digestion and breathing.
Consciousness is part of what makes each of us
unique. It encompasses many of our ideas, thoughts,
feelings, plans and memories. Conscious thought is
different from the unconscious workings of the brain
– which enable us to breathe, walk and talk and our
hearts to beat automatically. There are two aspects to
consciousness: awareness and wakefulness.
— Awareness refers to our internal, subjective
experience. It includes self awareness – the ability to
understand that you exist, as an individual, separate
from other people and with private thoughts. It also
includes awareness of the relationship between
oneself and one’s environment through use of our
senses and by thinking about ideas and acting upon
them using judgement.
— Wakefulness refers to different levels of
conscious awareness. Each day we experience a
spectrum of wakefulness, from full attentiveness, such
as if we are involved in an interesting conversation,
through inattentiveness, drowsiness and normal
sleep. Following some types of brain injury or during
anaesthesia people can’t be woken: they have a lower
level of wakefulness. Brain death lies at the far end of
this spectrum.
These two aspects of consciousness normally go
hand-in-hand; we don’t expect to have an interesting
conversation with someone who is asleep. However,
we can possess awareness when we are asleep, for
example when we dream.
Where does consciousness come from?
Scientists have amassed much evidence linking
different aspects of consciousness to our brain. We
now know that consciousness requires many parts of
the brain to work together. Parts of the cerebral cortex
act together to produce our thoughts and experiences.
A functioning thalamus is also required to produce
wakefulness – we know this because if a part of the
thalamus called the centromedian nucleus becomes
damaged, we become unconscious.
Unconsciousness can also be caused by
anaesthesia, or changes to the body’s internal
environment such as a rise or drop in core body
temperature or a lack of oxygen. A prolonged period
of unconsciousness is known as a coma. Sometimes,
after a severe brain injury, a person can enter a
vegetative state (VS). Unlike coma patients, VS
patients show normal wake/sleep cycles, but even
when they are awake they show no external sign of
awareness. When all electrical activity in the brain
stops irreversibly, this is known as brain death.
Scientists at the MRC Cognition and Brain
Sciences Unit in Cambridge study patients with
disorders of consciousness. Their work recently
revealed that a woman who was diagnosed as
being in a persistent vegetative state following
a car accident was aware of her surroundings.
Working with colleagues in Belgium, the scientists
used functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) to map the woman’s brain activity. She was
physically unresponsive and fulfilled all the criteria
for a diagnosis of vegetative state according to
international guidelines. But scans showed that her
brain responded to speech. Her brain also actively
processed the meaning of sentences, becoming
more active when she heard sentences containing
words with several meanings, like ‘rain’ and ‘reign’.
When asked to imagine playing tennis or moving
around her home, brain scans showed that the
woman could do this, activating various areas of her
brain in the same way as healthy volunteers. “These
are startling results. They confirm that, despite the
diagnosis of vegetative state, this patient retained
the ability to understand spoken commands and
to respond to them through her brain activity,” said
one of the researchers. “Her decision to work with
us represents a clear act of intent which confirmed
beyond any doubt that she was consciously aware of
herself and her surroundings.”
Doctors use different levels of sedation to reduce
people’s awareness of their bodies and surroundings.
For example, high levels of anaesthetic drugs cause
general anaesthesia: a complete loss of consciousness.
Another team of scientists at the MRC Cognition and
Brain Sciences Unit used fMRI to study how sedation
affects the brain’s processing of speech. Working with
researchers at the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in
Cambridge, they found that during heavy sedation,
volunteers’ brains still responded to the sounds of
speech but they were unable to process or remember
it. The findings have important implications for the care
of patients undergoing general anaesthesia or coming
out of a coma.
Available at: <http://www.mrc.ac.uk/publications/browse/the-brain-mrc- -research-for-lifelong-health/>. Retrieved on: 28 June 2016. Adapted.
In the text fragment “Its work includes developing new ways to measure the problems faced by people with brain injuries and developing new treatments” (lines 15-17), the word its refers to
06