Scientists revive cellular activity in brain of dead pigs
A team of Yale scientists managed to revive cellular activity in the brains of dead pigs that had been slaughtered hours before, challenging previous assumptions that brain cells irreversibly die off once the blood flow stops.
According to the researchers, the pigs had been dead for four hours when the brain cells were revived. The researchers used a special device that circulated a “blood-like chemical solution” through the pig’s brain, which maintained cellular activity six hours later. The study was funded mostly through the National Institutes of Health.
This does not mean the pigs were “living,” in the sense that they exhibited electrical activity associated with “consciousness,” senior researcher Dr. Nenad Sestan said. It merely meant that their brains were “cellularly active” and their brains showed no large-scale electrical activity that would indicate awareness.
