Scientists on Reddit

Adrian Owen

Neuroscientist who talks to unresponsive patients

How we know it's theirs

The 2017 r/science AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 3 posts and 91 comments from u/ProfAdrianOwen, dated 2014 to 2023, most often in r/science, r/askscience and r/CoronavirusSurvivors.

Best moment

A redditor wrote in r/science

On “Science AMA Series: We're a Group of Doctors who Communicate with people in Vegetative States, AMA!”

Is the communication limited to simple yes/no responses or can you get more specific with it? That is mind-blowing.

u/ProfAdrianOwen replied

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It is not limited to yes/no responses at all. In principle, we can associate the mental imagery tasks with anything (e.g." Playing tennis if you want me to stop asking you questions"). But using a hierarchical series of Yes/No questions we are able to discern a lot of information about the patient relatively efficiently e.g "are you in pain? Is the pain in your body? Is the pain in the lower half of your body? etc"

More moments

A redditor wrote in r/science

On “Science AMA Series: We're a Group of Doctors who Communicate with people in Vegetative States, AMA!”

Are these questions properly blinded? I.e. Does the person asking the question know the answer? If so, then it could be some other influence causing the responses you are seeing? Something not necessarily related to conscious thought? I remember seeing a show once about a dog…

u/ProfAdrianOwen replied

Does the person asking the question know the answer? Of course not - that would introduce the possibility of experimenter bias. Indeed, for the most part, the decision is made, not by a human at all, but by a computer…

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Does the person asking the question know the answer?

Of course not - that would introduce the possibility of experimenter bias. Indeed, for the most part, the decision is made, not by a human at all, but by a computer applying proven statistical models (e.g. if the scan returns statistically significant activity in the expected area of the brain at exactly the expected point in time that we have asked the paint to deliver an answer to the question, then it's either a real answer - 'yes or no' - or it's an amazing coincidence. After you have 5 or 6 'amazing coincidences' in a row (it always happens and it never doesn't happen) you start to realize that they are not coincidences at all, because the possibility of that happening by chance is incalculably small.

In a thread on r/science

Science AMA Series: I’m Dr. Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist whose research focuses on brain imaging, cognitive function and consciousness. We’re finding new ways to decode the complex workings of the brain. AMA.

u/ProfAdrianOwen replied

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Transplants fascinate me, because they have changed medicine in so many fantastic ways, yet the idea of ‘head transplants’ really is fundamentally different. Without a heart we can live on with the help of machines. A patient with an artificial heart is still the same person. Without a liver or kidneys we can survive, personality unchanged, until the death of another person provides us with a transplanted organ with which we can resume our lives, pretty much as we did before. We can lose arms, legs, eyes, and more and remain the same people, altered but nevertheless still us. Yet without our brains we are nothing more than a memory to others. We are not even a shadow of our former selves. We are gone. I suppose what I am saying here is that a head transplant is basically a ‘person transplant’. Your brain is who you are. It’s every plan you’ve ever made, every person you’ve fallen in love with, and every regret you’ve ever had. Your brain is all there is. It’s the pulsating essence of you as a person. Without a brain (or after a ‘head transplant’), you really would be someone else.