People with severe brain damage who appear to be completely unaware may in fact know what’s going on around them but are unable to respond, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

A study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology involved two young men determined to be minimally conscious. Doctors noted the patients’ brain activity while a close relative recounted familiar experiences, comparing this activity to the same sharing of experiences among healthy people.

In each of the brain-damaged patients, the relative’s voice prompted brain activity similar to that of healthy people, the newspaper reported.

Experts said the findings, reported by Columbia University Medical Center doctors in the journal Neurology, could apply to cases like that of Terri Schiavo, a woman at the center of a right-to-die controversy in Florida. Schiavo, who doctors say is in a permanent vegetative state from a heart malfunction a decade ago, has been kept alive for years against the wishes of her husband at the insistence of her parents.

As many as 300,000 Americans with severe brain damage live in what medical experts call a minimally conscious state. Typically, they are bedridden, cannot communicate or feed themselves, but often breathe on their own. Doctors have no cure.