I stayed home from work today sick and caught a movie on AMC called "Awakenings" with Robert Deniro and Robin Williams. It's about patients with some form of encephalitis, who were basically comatose and catatonic, until treated with some form of Dopamine. This led to some temporary "awakening," in the case of Deniro's character, after 30 years. I don't know the story behind the movie, but I may look into it. I highly recommend it, I don't know why I never heard of this one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099077/