A man in Italy who was in what doctors call a "minimally conscious state" for nearly two years unexpectedly regained full consciousness and the ability to talk, according to a new report of his case. 
 
 The man woke up after he was given a drug normally used as a sedative before surgery and other medical procedures, the case report showed. 
 
 The 43-year-old man was admitted to a hospital after a car accident, and was in a coma for 40 days. People who are comatose are completely unconscious — they have no sleep/wake cycles, and do not respond to their surroundings in any way. 
 
 The man awoke from the coma but remained in a "minimally conscious state," which means that although he remained largely unable to communicate or move, he was able to voluntarily open and close his eyes, and reach for and touch objects. He also had a sleep-wake cycle. 
 
 When he was discharged from the hospital 10 months later, he still did not talk or communicate with other people, nor did he respond to simple commands asking him to, for instance, close his eyes. 
 
 Over the next year, the man's cognitive ability started to decline; his movements became abnormally slow; and he began to engage in aimless, repetitive behaviors, such as clapping. 
 
 But then, about two years after the accident, the man's doctors wanted to examine his brain using a CT scan. To do the scan, they gave the man a mild sedative called midazolam. [7 Mind-Bending Facts About Dreams] 
 
 A few minutes later, the man began to talk and interact with others. 
 
 "He talked by cellphone with his aunt and congratulated his brother when he was informed of his graduation; he recognized the road leading to his home," the researchers who treated the man wrote in the case report. However, the man did not remember the accident, and he was not aware of the way it had affected his health, they wrote. 
 
 This is the first report of midazolam having an "awakening" effect, the researchers said. 
 
 However, the effect wore off after about two hours, and the man returned to his previous state, unresponsive to the environment, according to the study. 
 
 To see whether it was indeed the drug that caused the brief improvement in the man's condition, the researchers gave the man midazolam again. Several minutes following the administration, the patient began to interact with his brother and answered questions the researchers asked him. He was also able to calculate simple math problems, such as 100 minus 7, as well as read and understand simple sentences, such as "Close your eyes." 
 
 This time around, the researchers scanned the man's brain before, during and after the administration of midazolam, and identified the locations within the brain that were affected by the drug. They found that those regions previously had been linked to the symptoms of catatonia, which is a state of unresponsiveness to stimuli that is often associated with schizophrenia. 
 
 Moreover, the researchers noted, patients with catatonia have been reported to respond to midazolam in the past. The symptoms of the man in this report were similar to those of catatonic patients, which may mean that he was indeed catatonic and therefore responded to the drug, according to the study. 
 
 However, it is not completely clear whether the patient did indeed suffer from catatonia or whether his condition merely included certain catatonic symptoms, the researchers wrote. 
 
 Although midazolam was effective as a short-term method of treating the man's symptoms, the researchers said they could not keep giving it to him. Usually, the drug is given only to people in intensive-care units, where they can be monitored continuously, said Dr. Maria Chiara Carboncini, medical director of the Brain Injury Unit in the University Hospital of Pisa's Department of Neuroscience in Italy, who treated the patient and was a co-author of the report. 
 
 The researchers tried treating the man with another drug called lorazepam, which belongs to the same class of drugs as midazolam but can be administered more easily, as the patient does not have to be monitored continuously, Carboncini told Live Science. 
 
 However, after several days of therapy with lorazepam, the man became agitated and aggressive. His doctors switched him to carbamazepine, a drug used to treat people with epilepsy. This drug allowed the man to "maintain the improvement of his ability to interact and communicate with people," Carboncini said. 
 
 The study was published in the November issue of the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. 
 
 Follow Agata Blaszczak-Boxe on Twitter. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. ||||| This image provided by the CNRS Marc Jeannerod Institute of Cognitive Science in Lyon, France, shows brain activity in a patient before, top row, and after vagus nerve stimulation. Warmer colors indicate... (Associated Press) 
 
 This image provided by the CNRS Marc Jeannerod Institute of Cognitive Science in Lyon, France, shows brain activity in a patient before, top row, and after vagus nerve stimulation. Warmer colors indicate... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — French researchers say they restored some signs of consciousness in a brain-injured man who hadn't shown any awareness in 15 years. 
 
 During months of experimental treatment, his gaze could follow a moving object and he turned his head toward people speaking to him. He could also turn his head when asked to do so, and his eyes widened when a researcher suddenly came very close to his face, the researchers reported. 
 
 The treatment involved implanting a device in the man's chest to electrically stimulate the vagus nerve, which extends into the brain. The technique is sometimes used for depression or to reduce the number of seizures in epilepsy. The vagus nerve, which also reaches down into the abdomen, plays many roles including slowing the heartbeat and controlling muscles of the small intestine. 
 
 During the treatment, the man also shed tears and smiled while listening to a favorite song by French singer Jean-Jacques Goldman. The tears might have been the result of the nerve stimulation, said Angela Sirigu of the Marc Jeannerod Institute of Cognitive Science in Lyon, France, which is affiliated with the National Center for Scientific Research. Because of brain damage, the man could not speak, she said. 
 
 Sirigu is an author of a study released Monday by the journal Current Biology. 
 
 The 35-year-old man, who was injured in a traffic accident, had spent 15 years in a so-called vegetative state, which the eyes are sometimes open but the patient shows no signs of awareness. 
 
 His behavioral improvements appeared about a month after the device was switched on and persisted for the remaining five months of stimulation, Sirigu said. Brain scans also showed better functioning. 
 
 The result "totally makes sense to me," said Dr. Nicholas Schiff, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City who did not participate in the research. While it's the first success in a patient who'd spent 15 years in a vegetative state, it fits with other results that show even patients with long-standing, severe brain injury can be helped by treatment, he said. The challenge now is translating that science into better medical care, he said. 
 
 Most experimental treatments for the vegetative state have failed to show improvement, said Dr. James Bernat, emeritus professor of neurology and medicine at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Like any report about a single patient, he said, the new one is "provocative but not definitive," and further study is needed to see what kinds of patient it can help. 
 
 Sirigu said she's planning a large study involving several medical centers. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Follow Malcolm Ritter at @MalcolmRitter His recent work can be found at http://tinyurl.com/RitterAP
– A 43-year-old car-crash victim in Italy who fell into a "minimally conscious state" to the point where he could no longer speak suddenly started chatting again after receiving a sedative, LiveScience reports. A study published in November in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience said it's the first case showing "the 'awakening' effect of midazolam," a drug typically used to induce sleepiness before surgery. The man was in a coma for 40 days after his accident, then a "vegetative state" for four weeks. He was discharged after 10 months, but his condition worsened: Two years after the accident he couldn't say a single word or respond to simple commands and was performing "aimless repetitive behaviors" like clapping. Doctors treated him with various meds to no avail but then gave him midazolam instead of the usual propofol (the same drug that killed Michael Jackson) before a CT scan. The man suddenly "began to interact with the anesthetist," then with others, the study notes. The effect wore off after two hours, but doctors were able to replicate the results during a second midazolam dosage. The study notes that patients with catatonia (a state of unresponsiveness they're not sure this man suffered from) have responded to this drug before. Because midazolam can only be used in a hospital setting, doctors switched the patient over to carbamazepine (an epilepsy drug), which has since helped the man "maintain the improvement of his ability to interact and communicate with people," a study co-author tells LiveScience. Interestingly, zolpidem (often sold under the brand name Ambien) has been "well documented in literature" as evoking response in similar patients, but it didn't work this time, the study notes. (Midazolam has also been cited in botched executions.)