In Feeding-Tube Case, Many Neurologists Back Courts: “At the center of the court battle over the immobile body of Terri Schiavo, the 39-year-old Florida woman kept alive by a feeding tube, is a videotape made by her parents. It lasts only minutes but has been played so many times on television and the Internet that it all but defines her.

On the tape, Mrs. Schiavo, propped up in bed, is greeted and kissed by her mother. She is not in the deep, unresponsive sleep of a coma. Her eyes are open, and she blinks rapidly but fairly normally. She seems to follow her mother’s movements, but her mother’s face is too close for that to be clear. Her jaw is slack and her mouth hangs open, but at moments its corners appear to turn up in a faint smile.

To many supporters of Mrs. Schiavo’s parents, who say she should be kept alive on a feeding tube, the tape demonstrates that she can still think and react. But many leading neurologists say that it means no such thing, that the appearances of brain-damaged patients can be very misleading.

Florida courts have ruled, after hearing from several experts who examined her, that Mrs. Schiavo has been in a ‘persistent vegetative state’ — an official diagnosis of the American Academy of Neurology — since her brain was deprived of oxygen when she suffered a heart attack 13 years ago. Her feeding tube was removed on Oct. 15, but it was reinserted six days later after the Florida Legislature gave Gov. Jeb Bush the authority to override the courts.

Patients in vegetative states may have open eyes, periods of waking and sleeping and some reflexes, like gagging, jerking a limb away from pain or reacting to light or noise. They may make noises or faces and even say words.

But they do not, according to academy criteria, show self-awareness, comprehend language or expressions, or interact with others.

A vegetative state “is the ironic combination of wakefulness without awareness,” said Dr. James L. Bernat, a Dartmouth Medical School neurologist and past chairman of the academy’s ethics committee. ” —New York Times