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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
In a step that could change the definition of death, researchers have restored circulation to the brains of decapitated pigs and kept the reanimated organs alive for as long as 36 hours.
The feat offers scientists a new way to study intact brains in the lab in stunning detail. But it also inaugurates a bizarre new possibility in life extension, should human brains ever be kept on life support outside the body.
The work was described on March 28 at a meeting held at the National Institutes of Health to investigate ethical issues arising as US neuroscience centers explore the limits of brain science.
During the event, Yale University neuroscientist Nenad Sestan disclosed that a team he leads had experimented on between 100 and 200 pig brains obtained from a slaughterhouse, restoring their circulation using a system of pumps, heaters, and bags of artificial blood warmed to body temperature.
There was no evidence that the disembodied pig brains regained consciousness. However, in what Sestan termed a "mind-boggling" and "unexpected" result, billions of individual cells in the brains were found to be healthy and capable of normal activity.
[...] Today in the journal Nature, 17 neuroscientists and bioethicists, including Sestan, published an editorial arguing that experiments on human brain tissue may require special protections and rules.
They identified three categories of "brain surrogates" that provoke new concerns. These include brain organoids (blobs of nerve tissue the size of a rice grain), human-animal chimeras (mice with human brain tissue added), and ex vivo human brain tissue (such as chunks of brain removed during surgery).
They went on to suggest a variety of ethical safety measures, such as drugging animals that possess human brain cells so they stay in a "comatose-like brain state."
(Score: 3, Disagree) by takyon on Friday December 28 2018, @01:32AM (10 children)
A lot of cruelty has been inflicted on animals. Torture, killing for sport, livestock raised in cramped conditions and slaughtered for meat. But inflicting pain on animals for medical research is the most noble pursuit of them all. Let them do it to a million pigs if they want.
As for the specifics of your comment:
"You get killed" = highly debatable, which is kinda the point of this research.
"You probably [don't] feel pain, be it phantom or real" = FTFY. Prove me wrong.
"in the real world 2-3 weeks" = 36 hours. I'll give you a pass since they should be able to increase it.
"researchers" = nice scare quotes, "buddy".
"Tell that to the hospital workers taking care of comatose patients..." = a mixed bag of alluded-to anecdotes. Not all comas are equivalent.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 28 2018, @02:43AM (2 children)
Felines were the subject of choice for some time due to the similarities they share with humans
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday December 28 2018, @05:32PM (1 child)
I think it's due to the similarities cats have with each other. Their brain maps were extremely similar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30 2018, @04:33PM
All narcissistic/sociopathic brains look the same? :)
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Friday December 28 2018, @07:35AM
a mixed bag of alluded-to anecdotes. Not all comas are equivalent.
Some are gone. Some are just trapped. It is mainly the nurses and various assistants who spend enough time to have an educated guess about which patients are in which group. Every once in a while some patient recovers and can recall everything [syracuse.com]. Some bring themselves out.
Others need a nudge or the right cue. One anecdote in a ham operators' magazine was about a teenager who hadn't come out of his coma and his family had more or less given up. However, a visitor heard that and tapped a Q-code on the kid's forehead and got the smallest of responses but a still response. It was enough to lead to his reawakening. fMRI [theguardian.com] can help a little to identify which patients are still mentally available, but time with the machines (and the relevant doctors) is considered a money-maker and unavailable in large blocks even at a high price.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday December 28 2018, @01:59PM (3 children)
I've been struck hard by Poe's Law here! Please, for the love of all that is sentient, tell me that's intended ironically. Contextually, it certainly seems that way, but with the prevalent attitudes towards animals I have to ask.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 28 2018, @02:08PM (2 children)
No jokes, I'm all in. I want an aggressive pursuit of medical knowledge that we can all benefit from. I have little tolerance for whining about laboratory pigs and mice when global meat consumption is growing.
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(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday December 28 2018, @02:25PM
That logic only works against those that are comfortable with meat consumption. I'm not.
Can you expand on what you think makes these studies "noble"? The possible future health benefits to humans are obvious but I don't accept that the abuse of another being to approach that goal is a noble or honorable pursuit. Do you think it's justified on the grounds that they're less intelligent than most humans?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by fakefuck39 on Saturday December 29 2018, @03:00PM
I guess you're someone who has not experienced extended hard pain. No, I'm not talking about some surgery you had when you were on a morphine drip.
There's a difference between killing an animal in 2 seconds with an electroshock and torture.
But I'm with you. In fact, we'll get there faster if we experiment on humans. Let's take convicts who are to be put to death, and instead use them for experiments - it's the same thing since they die at the end. Heil Hitler brother.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 30 2018, @04:30PM (1 child)
How about getting nobly beheaded and hooked up to one of these machines, and then after years of study, before they shut you down, we can reattach your throat so you can speak and you can give us feedback on how horrific or normal it actually was for you.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 30 2018, @05:23PM
You first. Or you'd better be a vegan.
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