Sometimes we heard that a person with persistent vegetative state could not change or suddenly recovered in terms of an emergence of purposeful movement or any form of communication. The prediction of recovery of these patients is a valuable for physicians and caregivers. Therefore defining and establishing diagnostic criteria for the vegetative state (VS) and minimally conscious state (MCS) is a meaningful; MCS differs from the VS by the presence of inconsistent, but clearly discernible, behavioral evidence of consciousness, and it has a more possibility to recover than VS. I will review some new measurements, including behavioral, neuroimaging and neurophysiologic methods, to identify the difference between VS and MCS.