In a recent podcast, "Michael Egnor on Whether People in Comas Can Think," Robert J. Marks discusses with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor a difficult question many of us have had to ask: Am I heard? Or am I just doing this for myself? What can recent research tell us? A partial transcript follows. [Audio of the full interview can be found here.] Can you still think in a coma? Robert J. Marks (right): If you're in a coma, can you still think? What does neuroscience say? Michael Egnor: First, people usually take "coma" to mean that a peron has no meaningful interaction with their environment. And there is a condition called persistent vegetative state which is thought to be the deepest level of coma. It's not brain death because brain death means actual death. But it's the closest thing there is to brain death. It's a state in which it's been assumed that a person has absolutely no subjective experience. There is no first-person experience; you don't dream, you don't feel anything, you don't