  Sub-threshold stimuli cannot initiate excitations in active media, but
surprisingly as we show in this paper, they can alter the time-evolution of
spatially heterogeneous activity by modifying the recovery dynamics. This
results in significant reduction of waveback velocity which may lead to spatial
coherence, terminating all activity in the medium including spatiotemporal
chaos. We analytically derive model-independent conditions for which such
behavior can be observed.
