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The image of an undead brain coming back to live is science fiction. Not just any sci-fi, especially B-level sci-fi. What instantly comes to mind are the black and white horrors of movies like Fiend Without a Face . Bad game. Plastic monstrosities. Visible chains. What about a spinal cord that for some reason is also a tentacle?
But like all good science fiction, it’s only a matter of time before some way of it seeps into our reality. Nature published the results of researchers who successfully restored brain function in clinically dead pigs. At least, what we once thought was dead.
What is dead may never die it seems
The researchers weren’t from the Greyjoy house – “What died may never die” – but largely came from the Yale School of Medicine. They connected 32 pig brains to a system called Brain Ex . Brain Ex is an artificial perfusion system, that is to say a system which takes over the functions normally regulated by the organ. The pigs had been killed four hours earlier at a US Department of Agriculture slaughterhouse; their brains completely removed from the skulls.
Brain Ex pumped an experimental solution into the brain that essentially mimics blood flow. It supplied oxygen and nutrients to tissues, giving brain cells the resources to start many normal functions. The cells began to consume and metabolize the sugars. The brain’s immune systems kicked in. Neural samples could carry an electrical signal. Some brain cells even reacted to drugs.
Researchers have managed to keep some brains alive for up to 36 hours, and are currently unsure whether Brain Ex was able to nourish the brains longer. “It’s conceivable that we are just avoiding the inevitable, and the brain won’t be able to recover,” said Nenad Sestan, Yale neuroscientist and senior researcher.
As a control, other brains were given either a false solution or no solution at all. None restarted brain activity and deteriorated normally.
Researchers hope the technology can improve our ability to study the brain and its cellular functions. One of the main avenues of such studies would be brain disorders and diseases. This could pave the way for the development of new treatments for brain damage, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease and neurodegenerative diseases.
“This is an extraordinary and very promising advance for neuroscience. It immediately offers a much better model for studying the human brain, which is extremely important, given the large number of people suffering from diseases of the mind. [and] brain, “Nita Farahany, the bioethicist at Duke University School of Law who wrote the study commentary, told National Geographic .
An ethical gray matter
Before anyone gets a vibe Dr Moreau Island , it should be noted that the brain did not come close to neural activity near consciousness.
The brain Ex < La solution / em> contained chemicals that prevented neurons from firing. To be very careful, the researchers also monitored the brain for such activity and were ready to administer an anesthetic if they saw any signs of consciousness.
Nonetheless, the research signals a huge debate to come regarding medical ethics and our definition of death.
Most countries define death, clinically speaking, as the irreversible loss of brain or circulatory function. This definition was already at odds with some folkloric and value-centric understandings, but where to go if it becomes possible to reverse clinical death with artificial infusion?
“It’s wild,” Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, said the New York Times . “If ever there was one question that deserved great public deliberation on the ethics of science and medicine, this is it.”
One of the possible consequences concerns organ donation. Some European countries require emergency responders to use a process that preserves organs when they cannot resuscitate a person. They continue to pump blood throughout the body, but use a “thoracic aortic occlusion balloon” to prevent this blood from reaching the brain.
The system is already controversial because it raises concerns about the cause of the patient’s death. But what happens when brain death becomes easily reversible? Stuart Younger, bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University, said to that if Brain Ex became widely available, it could reduce the number of eligible donors.
“There is a potential conflict here between the interests of potential donors – who may not even be donors – and people waiting for organs,” he said.
It will be some time before such experiments reach human subjects. A more immediate ethical question concerns how such experiments harm animal subjects.
Ethics review boards evaluate research protocols and may reject those that cause undue pain, suffering or distress. Since dead animals feel no pain or experience any trauma, they are generally approved as subjects. But how does such advice pass judgment on the suffering of an “active cellular” brain? The distress of a partially living brain ?
The dilemma is unprecedented.
Set new limits
Another sci-fi story that comes to my mind when discussing this story is, of course, Frankenstein . As Farahany told the National Geographic : ” [sic] a good piece of science fiction, and it restores cellular function where we previously thought impossible. But to have Frankenstein , you need a certain degree of awareness, some “there”. [The researchers] didn’t recover any form of consciousness in this study, and it’s still not clear if we ever might. But we are one step closer to this possibility. “
She’s right. Researchers have undertaken their research for the betterment of mankind, and one day we may derive unimaginable medical benefits. The ethical questions, however, remain as unsettling as the stories they remind us of.