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Pig brains kept alive outside body for hours after death

Revival of disembodied organs raises slew of ethical and legal questions about the nature of death and consciousness.
  1. Sara Reardon
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In a challenge to the idea that brain death is final, researchers have revived the disembodied brains of pigs four hours after the animals were slaughtered. Although the experiments stopped short of restoring consciousness, they raise questions about the ethics of the approach — and, more fundamentally, about the nature of death itself. The current legal and medical definitions of death guide protocols for resuscitating people and for transplanting organs.

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Nature 568, 283-284 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01216-4

References

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