• Question: how do you go in a coma

    Asked by anon-204615 to Sally, Lucy, James, David, Dan on 13 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: David Chadwick

      David Chadwick answered on 13 Mar 2019:


      As little as often, if I can help it 🙂
      One way you can go into a coma is by having an anesthetic for an operation. This is an induced coma.
      Another way is by having a severe head injury.
      I don’t know the difference between being in a coma and being unconscious, or being asleep. I am not sure that the neurologists really know the real difference.

    • Photo: Sally Tilt

      Sally Tilt answered on 13 Mar 2019:


      Ooo – you’ve got me on this one – I’m afraid I don’t know the details of how this happens.

      That’s the great thing about I’m a scientist – hopefully there will be someone who will be able to answer this question.

      Thanks for joining the live chat earlier – you were a great class, and it was good to hear your questions. It was also pretty lively and quick – so sorry if we missed some of the questions at the time.

    • Photo: James Munro

      James Munro answered on 14 Mar 2019:


      Brilliant, unique question this one.

      The brain has a system called the ARAS (ascending reticular activating system) which starts in the brainstem but stretches into loads of different brain areas. The point of the ARAS is to allow us to stay conscious and to wake up from sleep into consciousness. Without the ARAS, if we every fell asleep or got knocked out we would not be able to wake up. Like a coma!

      So if anything bad happens to the ARAS, we tend to go into a coma. Most of the time this this happens because drugs are taken which damage or block the ARAS from working. Some other times it is because of heart attacks or strokes which stop oxygen getting to the ARAS and giving it energy. Without energy, it doesn’t work.

      Other causes of a coma might be damaging the ARAS through getting hit, having a bad infection which damages it, or getting a brain tumour. We can also put the ARAS to sleep to put people into a temporary coma on purpose. Luckily, these things are pretty uncommon and the ARAS usually recovers. Comas usually don’t last a long time.

      I hope that helps, Leon!

    • Photo: Dan Taylor

      Dan Taylor answered on 14 Mar 2019:


      James as done a far better job than I could manage, I don’t spend a lot of time reading about this stuff, so I will let him take this one! 😀

    • Photo: Lucy Maddox

      Lucy Maddox answered on 14 Mar 2019:


      Great question! I don’t really know an answer to this one but James has done a fab job!

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