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Dead brain can be ‘brought back to life’, but there’s a catch
The researchers believe their new work could redefine our understanding of life and death and the boundaries between them.
About five years ago, Yale School of Medicine neuroscientist Zvonimir Vrselja, Ph.D. and his colleagues shocked the medical community with a groundbreaking experiment.
In the study, they managed to remove the brain of a slaughtered pig from its head, then deprived it of oxygen at room temperature for four hours, and then hooked it up to a resuscitator and revived it. The results of this study shook the scientific community, writes Popular Mechanics.
It is known that the vascular system of the living brain, also known as the blood vessel network, carries oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood to the brain through arteries and capillaries.
So in their study, the scientists used a special resuscitation machine called BrainEx. With this device, they were able to pump a mixture of preservatives and drugs into the dead brain, targeting pathways that are usually damaged by oxygen loss.
The study authors note that the mixture contained a blood substitute made up of molecules that balance the pH levels of cells, as well as drugs to prevent an excessive immune response and antibiotics.
What happened next surprised the scientists: The gray cortex of the brain turned red, the cells resumed producing proteins, and the neurons began to show signs of metabolic activity, just as living ones do.
In simple terms, the previously dead pig brain was now performing cellular functions again, but it was not conscious. According to Dr. Vrselja, what he and his colleagues found was quite extreme: the brain was not completely “alive,” but it did not seem dead either.
According to resuscitation, cardiac arrest and intensive care expert Dr. Lance Becker, the result of this experiment contradicts everything that science has previously known about death.
Moreover, the scientist also stated that at this moment, the world is, in fact, on the verge of a real paradigm shift, as we will have to reconsider what life is and what death is.
After testing on pigs, Vrselja and his colleagues are now studying donated human brains with their BrainEx machine. It’s a more delicate operation than experimenting on pigs, and it carries serious ethical implications.
During the pig brain experiment, the scientists made sure that no perceptual brain activity was occurring. To do this, the team included sedatives in the formula, which prevented electrical activity. The scientists also ended the experiment after 6 hours. However, experiments with the human brain require more caution.
If the human brain were slowly approaching consciousness, it would raise ethical, legal and scientific controversy, says Hank Greely, a biomedical legal expert at Stanford University in California.
Vrselja told the publication that he and his colleagues “have no intention of hooking anyone up to their BrainEx machine at the moment of death.” But what they’ve accomplished so far is a significant step toward proving that brain death may not be as final as we once thought.
Meanwhile, the researchers have had some success keeping the brain “cellularly active for up to 24 hours” so they can test treatments for neurological diseases. They hope to help patients with conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The post Dead brain can be ‘brought back to life’, but there’s a catch appeared first on Anomalien.com.
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