And when the researchers ran the same study on another minimally conscious patient, they got even better results.

By all measures, Rios had officially emerged from the minimally conscious state.

He is minimally conscious, he can understand his condition and the ones who surround him at the hospital.

To answer that kind of question in a systematic way, researchers will need to follow more minimally conscious patients for longer periods, experts say.

The government has provided financing for the team to conduct a larger study of mental activity in minimally conscious people.

Doctors have no cure for either a minimally conscious or persistently vegetative state.

The team has since replicated the results in other minimally conscious patients.

Researchers know little about how to draw a person out of a minimally conscious state, which itself can last a lifetime.

Unfortunately, it blurred critical differences between the vegetative and minimally conscious states.

The patient was a 38 year old male who had remained in minimally conscious state following a severe traumatic brain injury.