Reversing Brain Death?

Brain death is just one of the many disorders of consciousness. According to Dr. Joe Vukov of Loyola University of Chicago “someone who is brain dead is in a [irreversible] coma” and also have the following two features: the absence of both brainstem function and spontaneous respiration. Thus being brain dead, is being dead. A common misconception with brain death is that it is the same thing as vegetative state. It is not, a person who is in a vegetative state while they might not be aware or conscious, they exhibit sleep/wake cycles, and typically can breathe on their own. A patient that is in a vegetative state, is not dead.

       In the past there have been many cases dealing with brain death. Unfortunately, all the patients who become brain dead are young, typically ranging from young children to young adults. This is because brain death is not genetic rather from a traumatic incident such as not having access to oxygen for a long period of time. Most of the time the families of these patients don’t accept the death of their loved one and fight the hospital to keep their loved ones alive through a heart-lung machine. This popular ethical debate on the status and treatment of brain death patients may finally be over. Researchers from Yale University School of Medicine, have created a machine, similar to that of a dialysis machine called BrainEx. BrainEx restores function of take in of glucose and oxygen, through the restoration of circulation and oxygen flow in a dead brain. The researchers were then able to restore the cellular function of 32 brain dead pig brains. While the brains were not conscious (having awareness), some level of restoration was made.

While BrainEx doesn’t go to solve or cure brain death, this does provide a possibility for the future. If a person is amidst a traumatic incident maybe BrainEx can restore brain function before a person becomes brain death. Whether or not if that is possible, it still opens the door for the possibility of reversing brain death. If this is the case this would alter the definition of being dead and this would raise more ethical concerns, like whether this is crossing the line of bringing people back from being dead. Given this may rise more ethical questions than solve, it might just be simple as Dr. Joe Vukov suggested, which is to have patient's families well aware of being brain dead means. Providing informational pamphlets with emotional support to patient families can really help in these rare cases of brain death patients.

Greshko, M. (2019, April 17). Pig brains partially revived hours after death—what it means for people. Retrieved April 23, 2019, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/pig-brains-partially-revived-what-it-means-for-medicine-death-ethics/