Heart Kept Beating Outside of Body

defence budget writes "CNN has a report about a human heart that was kept beating on its own outside a body during a test of a new medical device. Perhaps the success could be replicated for the Brain as well? (A 'living' computer?!)"

Comments

canned goods

[Scrameustache]

Well, the article says that they expect to be able to keep the heart beating 24 hours after removal from the body, and that an iced heart will last 6 hours.

Is that cummulative? can they add the two techniques and keep the heart "fresh" for 30 hours total? This is good news for transplant hopefulls.

Changing Perspectives

[martyb]

"CNN has a report about a human heart that was kept beating on its own outside a body during a test of a new medical device. Perhaps the success could be replicated for the Brain as well?

Keeping hearts, and maybe someday brains, alive outside the body? Somehow, it's never gonna be the same watching the "Wizard of Oz". ;^)

Think about it, though. At the time the Wizard of Oz was written, all three possibilities were deemed equally impossible. (IIRC the Tin Man wanted a heart; the Scare Crow wanted a brain; and the Cowardly Lion wanted courage. I'm sure if I mis-matched things someone will set it straight quickly enough.)

Nowadays, heart transplants are performed often enough they are no longer news worthy UNLESS the heart is artificial AND self-contained. Who knows what another 30-50 years will bring? Maybe they'll be able to transplant brains AND courage, too?

Re:Changing Perspectives

[Elwood P Dowd]

Except that a brain transplant could be more accurately described as a full body transplant. Most of what makes you martyb is in the brain, not the body. If the problem is with the brain, then you've got to fix the one you've got. And if it's with the body, then hell, just swap out parts.

Wow. Cool.

[Elwood P Dowd]

Perhaps the success could be replicated for the Brain as well? (A 'living' computer?!)"

Or perhaps also the success could not be replicated for the Brain. Even if this particular advance could be used to supply blood to the brain, the spinal cord is the complicated part. So no.

Why do people say stuff like this? You know, the brain is a perfectly good 'living' computer?! while it's sitting inside your skull. I can't really imagine a better place for it.

the important thing

[oliphaunt]

is of course that they were able to do something useful with the heart afterwards.

I'd like to point out that the average mammalian heart will keep beating of its own accord for several minutes after it has been removed from a living body. The normal heart has a set of electrodes, called the sinoatrial node and the atrial ventricular node, which broadcast electrical impulses to coordinate the simultaneous contraction of the heart muscle. Read all about it here.

I remember this because of a rat vivisection lab in sophomore biology. We opened that sucker up, and cut its heart out while it was still beating, and dropped the heart (it was about the size of a garbanzo bean) into a 100-mL beaker full of saline. The heart functioned like a little underwater jet-ski, pumping itself around the inside of the beaker for a good 5 minutes after it had been removed from its host.

the point is that the heart wants to keep on beating for a while...