Attorney Chris Dolan said yesterday that doctors at the nonprofit International Brain Research Foundation made the findings after running a series of tests on the 13-year-old Jahi McMath at Rutgers University last week.
The discovery came months after three doctors, including one appointed by a judge, declared McMath brain-dead, and Alameda County issued a death certificate after her December 9 sleep apnea surgery went awry.
Since then, Jahi's mother has pushed for keeping her daughter's organs functioning on life support, first at Children's Hospital in Oakland and later at an undisclosed medical facility in New Jersey.
Yesterday, Dolan showed video clips to a small group of reporters that he says proves Jahi is still alive. One clip shows her twitching her foot after her mother asks her to move it. Another shows hand movement in apparent response to her mother's commands.
Philip DeFina, chief executive and chief scientific officer of the International Brain Research Foundation, said Jahi has responded to commands many other times.
"There is a consistency to it," DeFina said.
Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at New York University's Langone Medical Center, said he knows of no cases of a brain-death determination being reversed. He cautioned that the data collected on Jahi has to be examined by other researchers and experts in the field before any conclusions can be made.
"Were this to be true, it would be an earth-shattering development in understanding death," Caplan said. "They're playing a high-stakes game."
Lawyers for the University of California, San Francisco Benioff Children's Hospital said the evidence in Jahi's case still supports the determination that she is legally dead.