Scientists have partially revived pig brains four hours after they were slaughtered. This is the very start of these kind of experiments but potentially if they keep alive all the traits of our brain, personality etc, we could have that put in a live body and come back. Freaky. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47960874 US scientists have partially revived pig brains four hours after the animals were slaughtered. The findings could fuel debate about the barrier between life and death, and provide a new way of researching diseases like Alzheimer's. The study showed the death of brain cells could be halted and that some connections in the brain were restored. However, there were no signals from the brain that would indicate awareness or consciousness. The surprise findings challenge the idea that the brain goes into irreversible decline within minutes of the blood supply being cut off. How was it done? Thirty-two pig brains were collected from an abattoir. Four hours later the organs were connected to a system made by the team at Yale University. It rhythmically pumped (to mimic the pulse) a specially designed liquid round the brain, which contained a synthetic blood to carry oxygen and drugs to slow or reverse the death of brain cells. The pig brains were given the restorative cocktail for six hours. What did the study show? please log in to view this image Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES Image captionThe researchers found synapses - the connections between brains - were working The study, published in the journal Nature, showed a reduction in brain cell death, the restoration of blood vessels and some brain activity. The researchers found working synapses - the connections between brain cells that allow them to communicate. The brains also showed a normal response to medication and used up the same amount of oxygen as a normal brain. This was all 10 hours after the pigs were decapitated. Crucially there was no sign of the brain-wide electrical activity in an electroencephalogram (EEG brain scan) that would signal awareness or perception. Fundamentally they were still dead brains. What have we learned? The research transforms ideas about how the brain dies, which many thought happened quickly and irreversibly without a supply of oxygen. Prof Nenad Sestan, a professor of neuroscience at Yale University, said: "Cell death in the brain occurs across a longer time window that we previously thought. "What we are showing is the process of cell death is a gradual, stepwise process. "And that some of those processes can be either postponed, preserved or even reversed. Are these experiments ethical? The pig brains came from the pork industry; the animals were not raised in a lab for this experiment. But the Yale scientists were so concerned the pigs might become conscious that they gave drugs to the disembodied brains to reduce any brain activity. And the team were constantly monitoring the brains to see if there was any sign of higher brain functions. In that case they would have used anaesthetic and ended the experiment. Ethicists, writing in Nature, say new guidelines are needed for this field because animals used for research could end up in a "grey area - not alive, but not completely dead". What is the point? please log in to view this image Image copyrightGETTY IMAGES The immediate benefit of this work will be for scientists studying the brain in diseases like Alzheimer's. The organ is the most complex structure in the known universe, but techniques such as freezing slices of the brain or growing colonies of brain cells in a dish do not let researchers explore the full 3D wiring of the brain. In the long term, scientists hope to find better ways of protecting the brain after traumas such as a stroke or being starved of oxygen at birth. Dr Andrea Beckel-Mitchener, from the Brain Initiative at the US National Institute of Mental Health, said: "This line of research could lead to a whole new way of studying the post-mortem brain. "It also could stimulate research to develop interventions that promote brain recovery after loss of brain blood flow." However, the researchers say it is still far too early for the field to make a difference to patients after injury. Prof Sestan said: "We don't yet have knowledge whether we would be able to restore normal brain function." Does this change the meaning of death? At the moment no, but some ethicists say we should have the debate now as people who are "brain dead" are a major source of organs for transplant. Prof Dominic Wilkinson, a professor of medical ethics and a consultant neonatologist in Oxford, said: "Once someone has been diagnosed as 'brain dead' there is currently no way for that person to ever recover. "The human person that they were has gone forever. "If, in the future, it were possible to restore the function of the brain after death, to bring back someone's mind and personality, that would, of course, have important implications for our definitions of death." But that is not currently the case. Prof Tara Spires-Jones, deputy director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, said: "This study is a long way from preserving human brain function after death as portrayed in the cartoon Futurama where heads were kept alive in a jar. "It is instead a temporary preservation of some of the more basic cell functions in the pig brain, not the preservation of thought and personality." Could the pigs' brains be aware? In this experiment the answer is a clear no. The brains were effectively silent. But the research does ask as many questions as it answers: How long can the researchers keep brains going? Would the results be even better if the researchers did not wait four hours before starting? Also, the team used drugs to suppress brain activity - would the decapitated brains have been aware if they hadn't?
I saw this in the news. They got the brain functioning but in terms of consciousness, thoughts, memories that wasn't possible? It's a big step though. A bit like getting ADSL and then the next step is getting to wireless. In answer to the question I don't know about forever, but I believe that there are people being born today (or that are young children) who will live comfortably well beyond a 100 (150 even) because the times we're living in, as they get older new advances in science will prolong their lives further and further and further. The world would be fcked though
I'm not sure about it not being possible. They were just touching base with this experiment and the positive results will make them dig deeper now. Are we living longer now as we have just always naturally evolved in this way? Or is it because we are more in control through vaccines and better diet etc?
That's a bloody difficult question to answer. Kind of links in with the pollution thread and the keeping healthy thread. On the one hand we're more conscious about staying healthy, on the other we're being fcked by dodgy processed foods, pollution etc. Advances in medicine is going to be important. One telling thing is the rise in dementia. That's a sign of a problem that's arisen from people living longer? If they can tackle that, it'll be a big hurdle to get over to increasing life expectancy. The other BIG one is cancer treatment. If they can improve immunoptherapy, Car T Cell, Proton Beam and treatments that tackle the most problematic cancers like bowel, lung, stomach, prostate etc then that's another massive hurdle covered.
We live in exciting times imo, with all the advances the human race has been making in the last 60/70 years and certainly in the last 20/30 years. I know this is slightly off topic but death doesn't bother me (maybe if it's in the blades of a combine harvester it might) but looking at how much progress is happening in our lifetime, the only thing I'd feel sorry about is not seeing what comes next.
I suppose it's scientifically feasible, as is cloning without the shortened lifespan, it's just a question of technological advancement.
pff, resources don't respawn at downtime, more and more people are wanting the trappings of wealth, reckon I'll see a big war in my lifetime. Miight get myself a hazmat suit.
Haven’t we got enough brain-dead morons wandering around the place? Not sure we really need any more.
Interesting article and quite poignant for me having just watched my father die. I wondered at which point he was actually 'gone'. When he stopped breathing ? When his heart stopped beating ? How long was he present after those events ? And how much cognition of the event did he have given his advanced dementia ? As for us living longer, but with the greater prevalence of dementia. My thoughts are that it's partially down to genes and partially down to lifestyle. I'm not sure you can completely shield yourself from dementia, but things like diet, exercise, not smoking, staying mentally active, avoiding pollutants etc all play a big part in ensuring the brain has a healthy supply of blood and oxygen. In some respects though, the bigger issue here about people living longer is whether this planet can sustain us. All of the scientific evidence points to the fact that we are heading for catastrophic climate change and mass species extinction.
To see Brexit happen. To see Spurs win the league. To see @The Ginger Nigga go a day without making a **** of himself on here. Loads of reasons.
U.K. life expectancy has actually gone down in the last decade, make of that what you will.... I think there’s a point where ‘life’ becomes merely existence and even whilst fully compos mentis, has little true value. One of the bravest things I’ve ever seen was a couple of years back when a 92 year old relative broke her hip after a fall, she’d lived in sheltered housing but alone to that point, but had been physically fading for a couple of years. She literally (and very subtlety) starved herself to death deliberately over about 6 weeks, turns out she was hiding her food, emptying protein drinks down the sink etc, she’d had enough and wanted to go. So took her decision and went. I can only imagine what mental strength that took.
As the article states is the brain aware, the answer was NO. If at any point the brain had been aware, then by law the experiment had to stop. On a slightly separate note, I watched a programme in regards to Parkinson's which also has similar links to dementia, they are on the verge of finding away of replacing the dead cells that cause these conditions, the problem they have is the new cells then become diseased, so now they have to work on disease resistance. To demonstrate the twists of life, the guy who created the science behind Dolly the sheep is now a Parkinson sufferer himself and it was his initial research that is forwarding the research in the desease he has today.
