Radical treatments bring people back from the brink of death

The severed pig’s head came from the local slaughterhouse. It was usually possible to get rid of them, however Zvonimir Vrseljaa neuroscientist at Yale University School of Medicine, and his colleagues have other ideas. Four hours after beheading this particular animal, they removed its brain from its skull. They then connected the dead brain’s blood vessels to tubes that pumped a special mixture of preservation agents into the blood vessels and turned on the perfusion machine.

That was when Something incredible happened. The crust turned from gray to pink. Brain cells began to produce proteins. The neurons came back to life, showing signs of metabolic activity indistinguishable from that of living cells. Basic cellular functions, activities that should have stopped irreversibly after blood flow stops, are restored. The pig’s brain wasn’t exactly alive, but it certainly wasn’t dead.

Now, for the first time, the team is using this technique on human brains.

“We’re trying to be very transparent and careful, because there’s a lot of value that can come from this,” says Versilia. Reviving a dead human brain – to some extent – would have enormous medical benefits. Researchers could try the drugs on cellularly active human brains, leading to improved treatments. Similar techniques are already being used to better preserve other human organs for organ transplants as well. In what may be its most immediately useful application, the resuscitation technology used raises the possibility of saving people on the verge of death.

The problem is that it is a morally complex task, to put it mildly. And by…