> When the definition of death changed in the late 1960s, making it possible for a person to be ‘brain dead’ but with organs still very much alive and available

> When the definition of death changed in the late 1960s, making it possible for a person to be ‘brain dead’ but with organs still very much alive and available for donation, a bridge appeared and a sixth class was created in the early 1980s. I am curious about this: what was behind the change in the definition of death? Is brain death actually the death of the brain — or was the definition of death changed in order to justify harvesting organs from the living? Has anyone diagnosed as brain dead recovered? Edit: for that matter, why are we so certain that consciousness and life exist only in the brain? The entire body is full of neurons, and as the article notes the body — which is to say, the human being — reacts to the trauma of organ harvesting in much the same ways one would expect a living human being to do.