'Partly Alive': Scientists Revive Cells in Brains From Dead Pigs (nytimes.com)

In a study that raises profound questions about the line between life and death, researchers have restored some cellular activity to brains removed from slaughtered pigs. From a report: The brains did not regain anything resembling consciousness: There were no signs indicating coordinated electrical signaling, necessary for higher functions like awareness and intelligence. But in an experimental treatment, blood vessels in the pigs' brains began functioning, flowing with a blood substitute, and certain brain cells regained metabolic activity, even responding to drugs [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. When the researchers tested slices of treated brain tissue, they discovered electrical activity in some neurons.

The work is very preliminary and has no immediate implications for treatment of brain injuries in humans. But the idea that parts of the brain may be recoverable after death, as conventionally defined, contradicts everything medical science believes about the organ and poses metaphysical riddles. "We had clear lines between 'this is alive' and 'this is dead,'" said Nita A. Farahany, a bioethicist and law professor at Duke University. "How do we now think about this middle category of 'partly alive'? We didn't think it could exist." For decades, doctors and grieving family members have wondered if it might ever be possible to restore function to a person who suffered extensive brain injury because of a severe stroke or heart attack. Were these brains really beyond salvage?

Comments

Great, let's make pig zombies now

[Anonymous Coward]

That can only end well.

Chemical machine

[Gilgaron]

Is this surprising to non-biologists? Cells are like machines made of chemicals. You can run electrical current through a dead frog to make its leg jump... until it finishes breaking down. Doesn't mean you could 'repair' the frog back to life.

Re:Chemical machine

[thereddaikon]

We have been consistently pushing back the line at which someone is well and truly "dead" for quite some time. It used to be that if someone's heart stopped that was it. But then we learned how to restart hearts. Then it became an issue of starting it fast enough. The window of time to resuscitate someone has gotten larger and larger over the last few decades to the point where someone can be "dead" for minutes at a time and can still come back. It logically follows that as time goes on that window will get bigger and bigger and we will be able to repair greater and greater damage. Just the other day we found it is possible for hearts to repair after damage from a heart attack. Previously that was thought impossible. Who knows, maybe some day we will get to the point where most causes of death can be reversed.

It's not a new state....

[Comboman]

It's not a new state between life and death; it's a new state between death and decomposition. Cells, tissues and organs have a "life" of their own and can continue "living" after the organism dies given the right conditions (as organ transplants prove).

Re:Metaphysics and religion confuses people

[Shaitan]

Consciousness exists because I can perceive myself. It is as simple as that. "We" may or may not exist, I perceive others and they seem to be self-aware like me but that could well be a self-reinforcing delusion.

The big issue that stands in the way of your assertion is our inability to actually create anything with even a minimal sense of self. We can build abstraction on top of systems and complex ordered systems so that those pieces come out in ways that match the "code" for desired outcomes. We have made some level of progress toward making that behave in a way that shifts around pieces semi-autonomously toward some result. The problem is that everything we build is merely a logical abstraction on top of something and given meaning by our own consciousness and not innate to the actual medium.

'"You" are a story that your brain tells itself.'

There simply is no direct evidence to support this claim. We can't even successfully model it at this point, let alone prove that the observer is manifested by the medium rather than the medium being a tool of the observer. Sure we can alter perceptions to some extent via physical processes but we can also do that with a broken scale, fake image, or any number of blatantly external mechanisms. It is very easy to forget that science is an applied philosophic model which provides results we perceive as useful but it is just a model. Just as geometry is useful even though there aren't really any circles, points, lines, or squares... those are just ideas we made up and then ran with.