5 ms·
Brain death usually only occurs after severe injury, either from trauma or from asphyxiation. Large portions of the brain ARE dead tissue; search for Terri Schi
by jawilson2 10y ago
Brain death usually only occurs after severe injury, either from trauma or from asphyxiation. Large portions of the brain ARE dead tissue; search for Terri Schiavo's MRI (or CT). Most of the skull is filled with fluid.
On the other hand, rarely comatose or persistent vegetative patients do wake up, or, more frighteningly, were awake and aware for years. I did some of my PhD research with a person who had a brain-stem stroke in 1980, who lived in a care center, and they didn't realize he was still awake and trying to communicate until 1992.
- diggernet 10y agoInteresting. So it sounds like after some period of time, an MRI or CT should be able to show that a 'beating-heart cadaver' is truly brain dead. My understanding of comatose/vegetative patients is that it is a different case, where an EEG would actually show some activity. Is that correct? As for the patient you mention... Wow! Fascinating! What is the definition of 'awake' in his case, how did they not know, and how did they discover??
- notanote 10y agoA mostly fluid filled skull is not an indication of brain death, in fact there are cases of people with most of their brains spread in a thin layer against their skull. [1] The name for aware but apparently comatose cases is locked-in syndrome. [2] A nightmare scenario for sure. [1] http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116 http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=6116 [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome