Three years ago Columbia University psychologist Joy Hirsch and neurologist Nicholas Schiff of Cornell University's Weill Medical College teamed up to perform functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on two minimally conscious patients.

FORBES: Twilight Zone

Koop was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended Dartmouth, Weill Cornell Medical College and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

CNN: Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop dies at age 96