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Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

https://www.science.org/content/article/not-alive-not-dead-disembodied-human-brains-used-drug-testing
36•Timofeibu•1h ago

Comments

unsupp0rted•1h ago
"alive" is not a meaningful term. It makes sense only when you have blunt instruments to measure aliveness, like pulse, respiration, heart beat, etc.

Once you go much more granular, there's no particular spot to make a distinction between "alive" and "not alive", until you stop seeing any electrical, biochemical and mechanical activity of any kind, at which point you're basically saying "inert".

ceejayoz•43m ago
And yet, "my child is alive" versus "my child is dead" have some… meaning.
lapetitejort•20m ago
With what we are learning about how gut flora, can a brain be considered conscious while detached from the digestive system?
prewett•41m ago
I just finished reading "That Hideous Strength" (CS Lewis) this weekend where they have a disembodied head kept "alive", and some convicts in the pipeline whose heads/brains, it is implied, will be experimented on similarly. Lewis was remarkably prophetic.
renticulous•7m ago
The Dust Theory in Permutation City by Greg Egan pushes the concept to bizarre levels.
acheron•28m ago
“We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?”

Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 Activity recorded M.Y. 2302.22467 (TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED)

aetherspawn•26m ago
Live dissection and experimentation on “alive but drugged” human brains is mental. How do you ensure that you aren’t torturing a brain that can’t see, hear or scream? How are you held accountable?
pavel_lishin•18m ago
Well, we know how to make living brains insensate - that's who we all make it through surgery.

Presumably they're doing something similar - or using some other well-understood mechanism - to ensure that's not the case.

> The brains are already almost devoid of the coordinated neural firing necessary even for minimal consciousness, says Brendan Parent, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Health and one of six ethicists on Bexorg’s advisory board. But the company also forestalls any electrical activity with the anesthetic propofol, among other measures. Bexorg obtains brains in partnership with organizations that procure donated organs for transplantation, and Vrselja says once families understand the company’s process and goals, their response is overwhelmingly positive.

gavmor•3m ago
That’s somewhat overstated.

We know anesthesia "works," and we know some of its molecular targets, but we do not fully know the mechanism by which it produces unconsciousness, ie whether anesthesia eliminates experience, or mainly blocks memory, report, and integrated neural processing.

garethsprice•18m ago
From the article:

> The brains are already almost devoid of the coordinated neural firing necessary even for minimal consciousness, says Brendan Parent, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Health and one of six ethicists on Bexorg’s advisory board. But the company also forestalls any electrical activity with the anesthetic propofol, among other measures.

crooked-v•10m ago
The word "alive" is doing a lot of work here. A brain is pretty much permanently fried after five to fifteen minutes without oxygen, and these are donor brains, not some emergency brain extraction team, so the timeframe will be much longer than that. There might be 'life' left in there in the technical sense, but there's no 'person' left.
EA-3167•9m ago
It's not a great article, and it glosses over the reality that if you hooked this brain up to an EEG it would show unequivocal brain death. CELLS of the brain are alive, but in terms of being able to function in any sort of coordinated way there that ship sailed minutes after the person who donated their organs died. The wave of depolarization that marks brain death isn't something we can reverse, and what's being done here is all about metabolism and structure rather than those much more subtle functions.

IMO the more questionable aspect of this entire operation is the use of "AI" to reach conclusions about how the test molecules are being metabolized, but that's a lot less compelling than implying that some company is somehow preserving life in a disembodied brain.

kreyenborgi•7m ago
Reminds me of a certain scene from Knausgård's Morning Star.
hokkos•23m ago
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
jpwesselink•20m ago
Just no.
abtinf•18m ago
I will be removing my organ donor status. This is horrifying.
pavel_lishin•17m ago
It looks like the families have to agree to do this, before your brain can be donated:

> Bexorg obtains brains in partnership with organizations that procure donated organs for transplantation, and Vrselja says once families understand the company’s process and goals, their response is overwhelmingly positive.

caconym_•16m ago
What the fuck? This is beyond the pale.
NDlurker•12m ago
This is legal but I can't legally pay another adult for sex or take drugs that could harm me? And there are many restrictions on gambling. It's weird how some morals are legislated but not others.
Aboutplants•5m ago
This provides humanity with a greater good than gambling
ckemere•9m ago
The obvious question I would have asked: given the concern that this may not be ethical if the brains are still “alive” AND the concern that a brain separated from the body probably doesn’t function these same, why wouldn’t we test things in living monkeys (instead of mice)???

It seems that the likelihood is high that the right animal model would yield superior data???

cduzz•9m ago
NEW VISTA, OUTER RIM—Just a cycle ago, the brain was in a living person. Now, hours after its first owner died, it sits on a slab draped in tubes that quiver as they pump liters of blood substitute and other fluids through the organ, supplying oxygen and removing waste. As far as anyone knows, with many of its key functions intact but maybe awarness muffled by drugs, the brain hovers between life and death. As people subject it to experimental drugs, sensors record the brain's reactions, capturing hundreds of data points on its cells, proteins, and physiology. Then, after 24 hours in this state, it will be sliced into hundreds of pieces for more detailed study.
acdbddh•8m ago
To be honest, if my only other option was to be buried, I would love to let my brain be connected to some machine that try to keep it as alive-like as possible.

Just please don't remove my brain before I'm 1000% certainly dead.

WalterBright•4m ago
There is a documentary about this:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052646/mediaviewer/rm713036545...

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Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

https://www.science.org/content/article/not-alive-not-dead-disembodied-human-brains-used-drug-tes...
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