Steven Laureys (born 24 December 1968)[1] is a Belgian neurologist.
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Laureys graduated as a Medical Doctor from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, in 1993. While specializing in neurology he entered a research career and obtained his M.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Medicine working on pain and stroke using in vivo microdialysis and diffusion MRI in the rat (1997). Drawn by functional neuroimaging, he moved to the Cyclotron Research Center at the University of Liège, Belgium, where he obtained his Ph.D. studying residual brain function in the vegetative state in 2000. He is board-certified in neurology (1998) and in end-of-life and palliative medicine (2004).
He edited The Boundaries of Consciousness (Elsevier 2005) and co-edited The Neurology of Consciousness (Academic Press 2009).
He currently leads the Coma Science Group at the Cyclotron Research Centre of the University of Liège, Belgium. He is clinical professor of neurology, at the Liège University Hospital and Senior Research Associate at the National Fund for Scientific Research. Since 2008, Laureys is chair of the European Neurological Society Subcommittee on Coma and Disorders of Consciousness [2] and since 2009 he is invited professor at the Royal Academy of Belgium.
His team assesses the recovery of neurological disability and of neuronal plasticity in severely brain damaged patients with altered states of consciousness by means of multimodal functional neuroimaging. It aims at characterizing the brain structure and the residual cerebral function in patients who survive a severe brain injury: patients in coma, vegetative state, minimally conscious state and locked in syndrome.
The importance of this project is twofold. First, these patients represent a problem in terms of diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and daily management. Second, these patients offer the opportunity to explore human consciousness, which is presently one major conundrum neurosciences have to solve. Indeed, these patients present a complete, nearly graded, range of conscious states from unconsciousness (coma) to full awareness (locked-in syndrome).
This research confronts clinical expertise and bedside behavioral evaluation of altered states of consciousness with state-of-the-art multimodal imaging combining the information from positron emission tomography (PET), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), structural MRI, electroencephalography (EEG), event related potential (ERP) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) data.
In 2006 Laureys used the latest brain-scan technology on Rom Houben, who had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state since a car crash in 1983. Houben's brain was found to be functioning almost normally. With appropriate treatment Houben was subsequently able to move enough to read, move his feet, and communicate through a computer. After the case was published in BMC Neurology in 2009,[3] it received extensive newspaper coverage first in German[4] later in a number of English media.[5][6]
Prominent skeptics such as James Randi have pointed out that Mr. Houben's means of communication via keyboard clearly resembles facilitated communication, where it is a facilitator and not the patient who is actively pressing the buttons by guiding the patient's hand,[7] thus raising questions about both Mr. Houben's ability to communicate and Dr. Laurey's diagnosis. Others point out that after 23 years in a locked-in state, it is improbable that the man would be able to communicate lucidly.[8] If Houben is truly locked in, the neurological mechanism by which he is able to generate enough pressure in his fingers to type with assistance is yet unclear.[9] Further testing, such as asking Mr. Houben to describe a few simple objects that are carefully kept hidden from everyone in the room but him, skeptics suggest, might put these suspicions of fraud at rest.[9]
However, according to the Times Laureys says that he has verified that the facilitated communication is genuine, by showing Houben objects when the facilitator was not present in the room, and later asking Houben to recall those objects.[10] Skeptics, however, observe that Dr. Laureys does not appear to have used proper controls in his testing and thus could easily have been deceived, either through others in the room cueing the facilitator directly or through the Clever Hans effect; if anyone in the room is aware of what is shown to Mr. Houben but Mr. Houben himself until he has described it, then the test's results are suspect. This includes Dr. Laureys or any other person administering the test.
In an interview with the Belgian newspaper De Standaard,[11] Laureys states that he was not involved in the choice of communication method. He claims to be "a skeptic myself" and acknowledges that "the bad reputation of some forms [of facilitated communication] is justified". He also claims that Houbens case was only made public because Der Spiegel wanted to report on his study and was looking for a "human element" to the story: "I knew that Rom and his family were willing to collaborate because they had done so before [for a Flemish TV channel]." However, he also criticizes some of the negative feedback for "judging the evidence only on the basis of some video footage" and declares that "given time, we will look scientifically into the different ways of communication. For us, this seems to be the proper way." In the meantime, Laureys did more tests with the result that it wasn't Houben doing the writing after all.[12]
At a congress in London on 16 February 2010, Laureys came back on his claims that he had been able to communicate with the patient, after extensive new tests.[13] "The words that Houben produced in November, were not the product of Houben but of the person assisting with the tests," he said. "We now must try and find new ways of communicating with Rom, as I am still convinced that he is conscious."