WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU DIE? THE BRAIN KEEPS WORKING LONG ENOUGH FOR THOUGHTS TO FORM

BY ON 10/19/17

Few things seem more absolute than death. But when it comes to actually pinpointing the moment when a person goes from alive to dead, drawing the line is a little more fraught.

The current medical definition of death is when the heart stops beating. In an interview with LiveScienceNYU Langone’s Sam Parnia, a pulmonologist who studies resuscitation, notes that from that point, it takes up to 20 seconds before brain waves are no longer detectable. According to Parnia, this sets off a longer chain of processes that leads to brain death. "If you manage to restart the heart, which is what CPR attempts to do, you'll gradually start to get the brain functioning again. The longer you're doing CPR, those brain cell death pathways are still happening—they're just happening at a slightly slower rate," Parnia told LiveScience.

In cases of cardiac arrest, doctors usually are not able to restore blood flow to the brain. That’s why the experiences of people who are successfully resuscitated are so fascinating.

These cases blur the line and challenge a definition that might seem clearcut to most people, but continue to be the subject of ongoing debate. The neurosurgeon Haider Warraich lays out the debate in bioethics over whether decapitation, separating a head from its body, automatically equals death. Warraich also mentions the case of doctors in the 1800s trying to distinguish life from death by plunging needlesattached to small flags into cadavers’ chests (if the flag fluttered the heart was beating and the person was considered alive).

To try and prove their point that a creature could be “alive” without its head, a group of researchers in the 1990s beheaded a pregnant sheep and connected her body to a breathing machine. They delivered the sheep’s baby by C-section. “There is no ambiguity here: the sheep remained alive during the experiment.” the researchers wrote, concluding “decapitated animals are not necessarily dead.” 

And these definitions aren’t chosen in a vacuum. Warraich writes that the decision to draw the line at “brain death” was motivated by the advent of organ transplants. Once organ transplants became possible, doctors needed a clear-cut marker of when a person was “dead enough” to remove their organs. The doctor who performed the first heart transplant in South Africa gave the donor a lethal injection to remove any room for debate.

http://www.newsweek.com/what-happens-when-you-die-brain-keeps-worki...

Views: 248

Have questions?

Need help? Visit our Support Group for help from our friendly Admins and members!

Have you?

Become a Member
Invited Your Friends
Made new Friends
Read/ Written a Blog
Joined/ Created a Group
Read/ Posted a Discussion
Checked out the Chat
Looked at/Posted Videos
Made a donation this month
Followed us on Twitter
Followed us on Facebook

Donations & Sponsorship

~~~~~~~~~~~
Please consider a donation to help with our continued growth and site costs

Connect

Visit The Temple
on Facebook:

....

Blog Posts

coat of arms of McIntyre clan.

Posted by Ghillie Dhu on March 2, 2024 at 5:06am 4 Comments

Are Ouija Boards Evil?

Posted by Bill Walker on February 1, 2024 at 8:15pm 1 Comment

TO RISE AND FIGHT AGAIN

Posted by Kitt on December 14, 2023 at 8:55pm 2 Comments

Osiris the Warlock: The Cursed

Posted by saii3ot on October 13, 2023 at 8:30am 0 Comments

Osiris the Warlock: Horus Lives!

Posted by saii3ot on October 13, 2023 at 7:00am 0 Comments

Osiris the Warlock: Nanna-Sin

Posted by saii3ot on October 12, 2023 at 3:30pm 0 Comments

Osiris the Warlock: Daemon

Posted by saii3ot on October 12, 2023 at 6:00am 0 Comments

Osiris the Warlock

Posted by saii3ot on October 12, 2023 at 5:30am 0 Comments

The (3l)ack & Red Dragon

Posted by saii3ot on October 11, 2023 at 1:00pm 0 Comments

The Sin (3l)ood Omen (II)

Posted by saii3ot on October 11, 2023 at 8:30am 0 Comments

The Sin (3l)ood Omen

Posted by saii3ot on October 9, 2023 at 7:30am 0 Comments

The 3nki (Doc)trine: Ptah-Øsiris

Posted by saii3ot on October 5, 2023 at 1:00pm 0 Comments

The 3nki (Doc)trine: Betelgeuse

Posted by saii3ot on October 5, 2023 at 10:00am 0 Comments

The 3nki (Doc)trine: Babylon

Posted by saii3ot on October 4, 2023 at 3:00pm 0 Comments

Joke Corner

Posted by William J. Coblentz on October 4, 2023 at 12:12pm 9 Comments

NOVEMBER AWARENESS

© 2024   Created by Bryan   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service