Magnetic Resonance Imaging in detecting brain activity

A recent study employing MRI scans revealed that some "vegetative" patients are aware of their state. The experiments were conducted on 23 patients believed to be in so-called vegetative state, i.e unaware of their surrounding environments. When asked to imagine some actions, the brain of 4 of the subjects showed identical response as those patients considered under healthy control.
Video report on vegetative activity studied by fMRI - CNN.