Ambien wakes up the brain damaged

Ambien (AKA Zolpidem) is an odd drug. Prescribed for insomnia, it seems to cause weird side effects like sleep eating and sleep driving, and getting into fights with cops. On occasion it also seems to wake people up from near vegetative states. In the case of this study a woman suffering from akinetic mutism- a state where you're conscious, but can't respond to the world with movement or speaking, Ambien let her function, ala Awakenings. From the press release:

...researchers conducted a study of a 48 year-old woman who developed akinetic mutism due to oxygen deprivation to her brain following an attempted suicide by hanging. The patient was totally dependent, unable to speak or walk, and was using a feeding tube for nourishment, although she was able to understand single words. Two years after the suicide attempt, she was given zolpidem for a bout of insomnia; 20 minutes later, she was able to communicate to her family, eat by herself, and move. These effects lasted for up to three hours.

It's not the first time Ambien has shown these kind of effects on braindamage victims. The researchers don't know why, but that just as addsto Ambien's mystery- no one knows exactly why it has any of thesestrange cognitive effects. It's in the top 20 of drugs prescribed inAmerica consistently. Colin Powell not only confirmed he takes it, butthat it was popularwith the administration. It's also abusable, whichis the technical way of saying it can be addictive and overly fun. A
pharmacist I was speaking to socially once told me that "if you want tosee a soccer mom shake like a crack whore, tell her she's out ofrefills on her Ambien."

I personally stopped taking Ambien after an inappropriate conversationwith my partner, where I apparently called him bad things. I sayapparently, because I have no memory of this happening at all. That itcan help patients to come out of a vegetative state just anotherconfirmation that we know very little about how our drugs or our bodies work. It's even odder than saving babies' lives with Viagra.