When a person sustains a severe brain injury that leaves them unable to communicate, their families and doctors often have to make life-or-death decisions about their care for them.
當一個人遭受了嚴重的腦損傷，使他們無法交流時，他們的家人和醫生經常不得不對他們的護理做出生死攸關的決定。
Now brain scanners are being tested in intensive care to see if mind-reading can enable some patients to have their say, New Scientist can reveal.
“新科學家”透露，現在大腦掃描儀正在重症監護中進行測試，看看讀心術是否能讓一些患者有發言權。
At the moment, doctors ask the families of people who have a poor prognosis and cannot communicate if they think their relative would want to continue life-sustaining treatments such as being on a ventilator.
目前，醫生詢問患者的家屬，如果他們認為他們的親屬願意繼續使用呼吸機等維持生命的治療，他們的預後很差，無法溝通。
“Life would be so much easier if you could just ask the person,” says Adrian Owen at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
加拿大西安大略大學的Adrian Owen說：“如果你可以直接問這個人，生活會容易得多。”
Owen’s team previously developed a brain-scanning approach for a much smaller group of people – those in states between consciousness and being in a coma, for example those in a vegetative state.
歐文的團隊先前開發了一種大腦掃描方法，用於一小部分人-那些處於意識和昏迷狀態之間的人，例如那些處於植物人狀態的人。
Such people show few signs of awareness and have to be fed through a tube.
這樣的人幾乎沒有意識到的跡象，必須通過管子餵食。
Owen found that some of these people can direct their thoughts in response to instructions, which can be picked up on brain scans.
歐文發現，這些人中的一些人可以將他們的思想引導到對指令的回應中，這可以通過腦部掃描來獲取。
If someone is asked to imagine playing tennis, for instance, the part of their brain involved in movement lights up in the scan.
例如，如果有人被要求想象打網球，他們大腦中與運動有關的部分會在掃描中亮起。
This has let his and other teams ask those who are able to respond in this way yes/no questions, which can give people a say over their living conditions.
這讓他和其他團隊可以問那些能夠以這種方式回答是/不是問題的人，這可以讓人們對自己的生活條件有發言權。
About a fifth of people the technique is tried on can respond.
在嘗試這項技術的人中，大約五分之一的人可以做出反應。
Owen is now using the same technique on people who are in intensive care in the first few days after sustaining a severe brain injury.
歐文現在正將同樣的技術用於那些在遭受嚴重腦損傷後的頭幾天內處於重症監護中的人。
In such circumstances, just over a quarter of people end up having their treatment withdrawn due to a poor prognosis.
在這種情況下，剛剛超過四分之一的人最終由於預後不良而撤回了他們的治療。
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