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Subscribe to RSSWe've seen it in comedies - someone is decapitated, but still talking - usually scolding or lecturing in some way. Now, a new study shows that the brain may live on after being separated from the body, at least for a while, reports LiveScience.
In a strange twist in logic, researchers at Raboud University Nijmegan in the Netherlands who were concerned about the ethics of killing lab rats through decapitation decided to study that very thing - by killing lab rats through decapitation. They wanted to find out whether awake rats suffer or swiftly fell unconscious.
Their study found that the EEG, which measures brains electrical activity, went dead about 17 seconds after decapitation (and it appeared the rat was unconscious after about 4 seconds). But then a minute later, they noticed a large electrical wave go through the brain, reports LiveScience. They called it the "wave of death," which sounds pretty final, which researchers thought it was.
But now neurologist Michel van Putten of the University of Twente in the Netherlands and his colleagues have published a paper suggesting it's not the final act of the brain before permanently shutting down. Using a computer model, they decided that brain cells could be revived if given oxygen and glucose.
Either way, there still seems to remain a fairly severe impairment - the lack of the rest of the body.
Full story on LiveScience: Brain may live on after decapitation
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Leave a Comment:
Is this what happened to Congress?
made my day
Brain can live without body. Although it sounds very Sci-Fi, this could be laying the groundwork for brain transplants. Think of the ramifications! Mental Illness? Brain Trauma? Parkinsons? The list could go on and on.
I don't think it can really be called a "Brain transplant". It would have to be called a "Body Replacement" since what makes a person WHO they are IS the brain.
If you have brain trauma or disease you are not going to BE you anymore if your brain is replaced.
Gee......seems like your brain is........forget it......I'm gonna be nice. :)
we're one step closer to figuring out how to get the "heads in jars" of Futurama!
Good news for those of us who plan to upload soon.
My question is, who decided, "Hey, I got a great idea for an experiment! Let's decapitate of a bunch of rats and measure their brain activity!" ?
I know, they need to get rid of the rats and all... how about feeding them to those snakes in congress?
That is creepy.
Think of all those folks in France, looking up from the bucket their heads fell into...
Maybe one day everyone will be able to keep a spare in a bucket, or other appropriate container. Could charge it with holding and releasing data when the joined brain forgets or just doesn't know. In other words a "slave brain".
I recall reading of gruesome transplantation experiments conducted in Russia during which doctors basically disassembled dogs and then re-assembled them in various configurations, including hooking up heads to mechanical pumps that sustained blood flow "postmortem" and then re-attaching the heads to dogs. I don't remember how long they managed to keep the dogs alive through this process but I believe it was at least several hours. It's a bit too horrifying for me to look up the details but I'm certain google knows of it.
Dunno the basis or of such Russian goulishness but that was a plotline in the 2nd & last Xfiles movie (Xfiles: I Want to Believe).
Strictly Russian propaganda. Never happened.
I saw pictures of this (I don't remember reading it was Russians) in a book or magazine as a child. A German Shepherd's head, looking quite alive, hooked up to a machine. It's one of those things I could have gone without seeing.
Memories are stored in the brain, so if brain transplants did become a reality, it likely would not be the sick-brained person who would get another shot at life, but rather the brain donor. If the brain could be kept alive and implanted in another skull, there would be no vestiges of the original patient left.
I have a feeling that this type or procedure (or even experimentation along these lines) will be barred for many years due to ethics concerns.
Fit the brain to an artificial body, skip the transplant.
tron...crom!
" this could be laying the groundwork for brain transplants. Think of the ramifications! Mental Illness? Brain Trauma? Parkinsons?"
So when Grandpa has mental illness or a brain trauma from a fall - no worries, with Allie's brilliant plan we can just yank out is broken brain and swap in a brain from some stranger. Super duper.....as long as we didn't really care for anything that made grandpa grandpa and as long as the new brain isn't abby-normal....meet your new Franken-pa!
eeeuuuuuuuu! LOL!!!
I lost my head over this! What an interesting article.
Nothing new. Simply a controlled experiment that proved a given. People have been put to death by beheading for a very long time, and witnesses have reported heads attempting to talk, looking around, etc.
That's true. I've always thought this was quite possible. Nice to see it actually have some basis in science though.
This is disgusting. I do scientific research myself, so I understand the need for testing with rats and other animals, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. However, I see little value in actually killing rats to test this and am shocked that it got approval from the ethics review board. I just think that some things we don't need to know. This may answer some morbid questions, but necessary questions? I think not.