A man in a coma for a year has started speaking since words and obeying one-step commands, after 30 treatments to the right prefrontal dorsolateral cortex with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Chicago.

While further studies are needed to demonstrate TMS effects, the patient had only been given a 20 to 40 per cent chance of long-term recovery, and until he was given TMS his functioning had not improved since about four months after the accident. And after the 15th TMS session, he improved incrementally with each session.

Other experimental treatments include drugs that have temporarily roused three men from a coma and deep brain stimulation, an invasive technique that roused a man out of a minimally conscious state.