Posted on 05/03/2016 11:08:55 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
A groundbreaking trial to see if it is possible to regenerate the brains of dead people, has won approval from health watchdogs.
A biotech company in the US has been granted ethical permission to recruit 20 patients who have been declared clinically dead from a traumatic brain injury, to test whether parts of their central nervous system can be brought back to life.
Scientists will use a combination of therapies, which include injecting the brain with stem cells and a cocktail of peptides, as well as deploying lasers and nerve stimulation techniques which have been shown to bring patients out of comas.
The trial participants will have been certified dead and only kept alive through life support. They will be monitored for several months using brain imaging equipment to look for signs of regeneration, particularly in the upper spinal cord - the lowest region of the brain stem which controls independent breathing and heartbeat.
The team believes that the brain stem cells may be able to erase their history and re-start life again, based on their surrounding tissue a process seen in the animal kingdom in creatures like salamanders who can regrow entire limbs....
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Interesting trial. Hopefully they will succeed and extend their focus on serious stroke patients, too.
you should probably weigh-in on this matter....
LOL!
lol - I had already guessed you’d be here, lol.
How does one 'recruit' the 'clinically dead'?
After all, if their 'central nervous system' needs to be brought to back to life, how can it possibly comprehend the concept of consenting to an experimental procedure?
Not that this means the experiment shouldn't be done ... only that it shouldn't be framed in such unctuous ethical nonsense.
Old age is a brain injury either ongoing or waiting to happen or some of both.
True, but not a “traumatic” injury.
No, but this is how we get there.
It’s alive!
Paging Mary Shelly . . .
Will they be able to revive Hillary from brain death?
At best, they could induce a new brain to grow in that body. That would make a new person. Depending on the source of the stem cells, that new person would be dramatically different. Plus, uneducated. There is a strong moral component to placing a new person in an old body--I'd call it extremely unethical. Then there is the practical component that this person would need to be educated--who wants to deal with an infant in an adult body, with all of the emotional outbursts and so forth?
Maybe for purposes of repairing badly damaged brains where the original person is still present--like Terri Schindler--this technique would have applications. We would still have to reeducate the person, and they would not be the same as prior to the injury. But replacing dead brains? I don't think we want to go there.
Zombies! It’s how it starts.
Sounds like it’s about the USA. We’re toast.
...but there are others.
What if they brought a portion of the brain back just enough to allow realization of the situation with no ability to communicate or alter it. This is a horrible idea!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.