[jwalsh07]

She was not braindead. However, all of the credible experts who examined her concluded that her higher brain had, literally, melted. We've all seen the images of her brain.

But because only some of us have experience in the world of diagnostic imaging, only some of us realized that phrases and words like "melted" and "all cerebrospinal fluid" were bogus. She had cortex, very badly damaged cortex but here's the catch. Nobody knows how much cortex one needs to retain higher functions. And since no Pet or fMRI was ordered we'll never know if she had any activity in those remaining neurons and synapses.

[Kryptonite]

I had the chance this past weekend to ask my FIL and BIL - both neuroradiologists - about the scans they had seen. My BIL was valedectorian of his grade school, high school, university and tops in med school as well. My FIL was the first neuroradiologist in our state.

They were both very suprised to see how little damage actually showed up. Neither of them thought the images evidenced anything more than what they described as moderate brain damage.

I was pretty surprised to hear that from them, given what has been reported to date.