9 ms·
Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing
- unsupp0rted 5mo ago"alive" is not a meaningful term. It makes sense only when you have blunt instruments to measure aliveness, like pulse, respiration, heart beat, etc. Once you go much more granular, there's no particular spot to make a distinction between "alive" and "not alive", until you stop seeing any electrical, biochemical and mechanical activity of any kind, at which point you're basically saying "inert".
- ceejayoz 5mo agoAnd yet, "my child is alive" versus "my child is dead" have some… meaning.
- lapetitejort 5mo agoWith what we are learning about how gut flora, can a brain be considered conscious while detached from the digestive system?
- oh_my_goodness 5mo agoIs this dry humor and/or a deliberate attempt to make the reader even more horrified by the experiment? Or only a different sensibility from mine? No judgement. I just really can't tell.
- prewett 5mo agoI just finished reading "That Hideous Strength" (CS Lewis) this weekend where they have a disembodied head kept "alive", and some convicts in the pipeline whose heads/brains, it is implied, will be experimented on similarly. Lewis was remarkably prophetic.
- renticulous 5mo agoThe Dust Theory in Permutation City by Greg Egan pushes the concept to bizarre levels.
- bicx 5mo agoGreg Egan is a legend
- quirk 5mo agoCame here to say this. The Space Trilogy is one of the best series I've ever read. That Hideous Strength reminds me a LOT of what's happening these days. Even moreso than 1984. Would love to see a great director tackle it as a film.
- acheron 5mo ago“We are all aware that the senses can be deceived, the eyes fooled. But how can we be sure our senses are not being deceived at any particular time, or even all the time? Might I just be a brain in a tank somewhere, tricked all my life into believing in the events of this world by some insane computer? And does my life gain or lose meaning based on my reaction to such solipsism?” Project PYRRHO, Specimen 46, Vat 7 Activity recorded M.Y. 2302.22467 (TERMINATION OF SPECIMEN ADVISED)
- gavmor 5mo agoGive credit where credit is due: Descartes, Kant, Putnam, etc.
- sodaplayer 5mo agoIt'll be Brian Reynolds in this case. It's a quote from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
- mattlondon 5mo agoHmm pretty sure I saw this in the thought traces of Claude the other day...
- dhosek 5mo agoMeditations on First Philosophy messed me up bad. All of Descartes’ reasoning about the inability to determine whether experience was real made complete sense to me. But when I got to where he started to try to build back reality, I didn’t buy it. I can only believe in reality by willfully forgetting Descartes.
- willis936 5mo agoBut take comfort in knowing you are not the void. Cogito ergo sum. It's the only true refute of solipsism.
- transitorykris 5mo agoIt’s really a solipsistic philosophy. The awkwardness of it was the fact he had a king and the church to appease in his arguments. Willfully forgetting Descartes is one way of dealing with it! (..or plotting a path out of it by reading him as a proto-existentialist)
- aetherspawn 5mo agoLive dissection and experimentation on “alive but drugged” human brains is mental. How do you ensure that you aren’t torturing a brain that can’t see, hear or scream? How are you held accountable?
- koolba 5mo ago> Live dissection and experimentation on “alive but drugged” human brains is mental. There’s no such thing as live dissection. It’s vivisection.
- pavel_lishin 5mo agoWell, we know how to make living brains insensate - that's who we all make it through surgery. Presumably they're doing something similar - or using some other well-understood mechanism - to ensure that's not the case. > The brains are already almost devoid of the coordinated neural firing necessary even for minimal consciousness, says Brendan Parent, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Health and one of six ethicists on Bexorg’s advisory board. But the company also forestalls any electrical activity with the anesthetic propofol, among other measures. Bexorg obtains brains in partnership with organizations that procure donated organs for transplantation, and Vrselja says once families understand the company’s process and goals, their response is overwhelmingly positive.
- gavmor 5mo agoThat’s somewhat overstated. We know anesthesia "works," and we know some of its molecular targets, but we do not fully know the mechanism by which it produces unconsciousness, ie whether anesthesia eliminates experience, or mainly blocks memory, report, and integrated neural processing.
- duskwuff 5mo agoAnesthesia appears to be a fairly broad effect - anaesthetics work on plants, for example [1], even though they lack any neural tissue whatsoever. It would be extremely surprising if those effects were also targeted enough to halt only some types of brain activity. [1]: e.g. https://doi.org/10.4161/psb.27886 https://doi.org/10.4161/psb.27886
- hokkos 5mo agoI Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
- ReptileMan 5mo agoWe don't create the torment nexus, we are creating all the possible torment nexuses
- jpwesselink 5mo agoJust no.
- wrecked_em 5mo ago[dead]
- abtinf 5mo agoI will be removing my organ donor status. This is horrifying.
- pavel_lishin 5mo agoIt looks like the families have to agree to do this, before your brain can be donated: > Bexorg obtains brains in partnership with organizations that procure donated organs for transplantation, and Vrselja says once families understand the company’s process and goals, their response is overwhelmingly positive.
- smeggysmeg 5mo agoUntil we find out otherwise. There have been multiple organ harvesting scandals lately. Informed consent has become a marketing concept, no longer a reality.
- tyre 5mo agoCitation required. Specifically for a western country happening at any notable scale via organ donors.
- Bratmon 5mo agoCitation: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/us/kentucky-organ-donations.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/us/kentucky-organ-donatio... Organ harvesting of living patients hasn't fully scaled up as a practice yet, but it's definitely a major source of income for some rural hospitals.
- aceofspades19 5mo agoThe claim was there was multiple "organ harvesting scandals". Upon reading, it seems like the system worked, the doctors refused to retrieve the organs because the patient showed signs of life. It also looks like they have worked to put in place stricter protocols for organ retrieval since then. I would say accidentally mistaking the patient is dead in any case is hardly the same as purposefully harvesting the organs from people they know are alive to get paid. The article does not state any evidence to suggest they are doing this. There is obviously going to be some pressure to make a decision to retrieve the organs in the interest of not wasting something that could save another's life as there is a limited time frame where these organs can be viable. There is a huge distinction between that and going to patients that have no doubt they are alive and harvesting their organs.
- caconym_ 5mo agoWhat the fuck? This is beyond the pale.
- NDlurker 5mo agoThis is legal but I can't legally pay another adult for sex or take drugs that could harm me? And there are many restrictions on gambling. It's weird how some morals are legislated but not others.
- Aboutplants 5mo agoThis provides humanity with a greater good than gambling
- throwaway613746 5mo agoSo did Nazi eugenics.
- adi_kurian 5mo agoHow so?
- trallnag 5mo agoEugenics under the national socialists was extreme and twisted. But it still was about eugenics at its core. Even today we apply practices of eugenics, for example with prenatal screening for down syndrome followed by abortion. Gambling sets a very low bar when it comes to upsides.
- throwaway613746 5mo ago[dead]
- booleandilemma 5mo agoCan't make having fun too easy. It ruins the control the elites have over us.
- croes 5mo agoDrugs and gambling are ways to get controlled
- ethanrutherford 5mo agoThis makes me feel physically ill. It's like something straight out of a sci-fi dystopia, how did this get approved? Who determined that reinjecting biological activity into a human brain is definitely not some form of reanimation? If they're using heavy sedation to prevent electrical activity, is that not tacit admission they're not 100% sure that consciousness might return otherwise? How did this pass ethics review, or did they even bother?
- DontBreakAlex 5mo ago[flagged]
- wanoir 5mo agoThis is an interesting point I think for direct comparison, the way of re-animating the brain described in the article would need to be attempted on the cardiac arrest patient as well so as to be sure it isn’t a “revival”-capable method Might already be an obvious answer to practitioners in the field
- DontBreakAlex 5mo agoMy understanding is that after a few minutes without oxygen, the chemistry inside your brain is "fucked up" and even if you get oxygen back it's gone, you're already a vegetable. I like to think that "the state of the machine is gone" but I'm not a doctor
- wanoir 5mo ago> even if you get oxygen back it's gone, you're already a vegetable I think that's the part that might get people though. Since a comatose brain is not necessarily fully gone So I guess the question is what differentiates a comatose brain from one that is no longer capable of consciousness?
- tomhow 5mo agoPlease don't fulminate on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ckemere 5mo agoThe obvious question I would have asked: given the concern that this may not be ethical if the brains are still “alive” AND the concern that a brain separated from the body probably doesn’t function these same, why wouldn’t we test things in living monkeys (instead of mice)??? It seems that the likelihood is high that the right animal model would yield superior data???
- cduzz 5mo agoNEW VISTA, OUTER RIM—Just a cycle ago, the brain was in a living person. Now, hours after its first owner died, it sits on a slab draped in tubes that quiver as they pump liters of blood substitute and other fluids through the organ, supplying oxygen and removing waste. As far as anyone knows, with many of its key functions intact but maybe awarness muffled by drugs, the brain hovers between life and death. As people subject it to experimental drugs, sensors record the brain's reactions, capturing hundreds of data points on its cells, proteins, and physiology. Then, after 24 hours in this state, it will be sliced into hundreds of pieces for more detailed study.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- acdbddh 5mo agoTo be honest, if my only other option was to be buried, I would love to let my brain be connected to some machine that try to keep it as alive-like as possible. Just please don't remove my brain before I'm 1000% certainly dead.
- saalweachter 5mo agoTo some extent, volunteering for any sort of medical study is signing up to be tortured in the hopes that someone down the line might be saved by the research. Most cancer treatments, for instance, are objectively terrible to go through, and when you're testing and developing the protocols you're pumping already sick people full of poisons and hoping for the best. There's some fraction of people who would prefer to be kept alive as a brain in a jar, depending on the alternatives, but getting to that point is going to require a bunch of people to volunteer to undergo excruciating torture as we learn how to keep the brain alive, how to keep them comfortable, how to keep them conscious, sane and let them interact with the world.
- bsimpson 5mo agoThis is precisely why I've never been interested in being an organ donor. I don't remember where specifically I learned this, but I was taught that tissue has to be alive to be useful, so they harvest it when you're almost-dead. Having my last moments be being literally dismembered is not something I wish for my future self.
- scratchyone 5mo agoThey will never remove tissue if you're still alive. This is the reason organ donation is most common in brain-death cases, because the tissue is still alive but you are entirely dead. As you point out, it would be horrible to dismember someone who is still alive and would certainly violate their oath. I hope this is a comforting answer, I choose to be an organ donor because of these details.
- FrinkleFrankle 5mo agoTrue. You'd probably go crazy as a brain disconnected from your body, regardless of what drugs they give you.. But It'd be an interesting final experience, I guess. I do hope they're getting pain killers along with the anaesthesia, though.
- WalterBright 5mo agoThere is a documentary about this: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052646/mediaviewer/rm713036545/?ref_=tt_ov_i https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052646/mediaviewer/rm713036545...
- aftbit 5mo ago“We'll send only a brain"
- ReptileMan 5mo agoThey have no mouth and they must scream...
- kypro 5mo agoThis is literally my biggest fear. The idea that my biology or consciousness could be keep alive and in a state of suffering for years, decades, centuries or longer via neural simulation or biological intervention. I do wonder if AI advancements will allow me to see these horrors play out. Hopefully not to myself. https://spikeartmagazine.com/articles/libra-season-hello-cruel-world https://spikeartmagazine.com/articles/libra-season-hello-cru...
- jjk166 5mo agoLet me add Johnny Got His Gun to the surprisingly large number of works that seem to anticipate exactly this premise.
- akomtu 5mo agoThat's demonic creativity.
- aussieguy1234 5mo agoDoes this tech take us one step closer to a human brain in a robot body, or some kind of simulated reality?
- artursapek 5mo agoA nice reminder to not check the "organ donor" box at the DMV
- cogogo 5mo agoI find it hard to believe the donors had any idea they were authorizing an experiment like this but sure hope I am wrong. Reminds me of the Three Body Problem and sending a live brain to the cosmos because the tyranny of the rocket equation made a whole human impossible.
- hungryhobbit 5mo ago[flagged]
- c420 5mo agoIs there really a distinction between torturing humans and torturing pets? Aside from torture being torture, pets are members of people's families!
- jolmg 5mo ago> pets are members of people's families! If you could only rescue one member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize the pet over a human member of your family?
- makeitdouble 5mo agoLegal/social consequences weight into your question. A more straightforward angle could be money spent: would someone spend more for the wellbeing of their pet than for a family member (elderlies included).
- runjake 5mo ago>> pets are members of people's families! > If you could only rescue one member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize the pet over a human member of your family? If you could only rescue one family member from some kind of deadly emergency and they had equal chances, would you prioritize a stranger over a member of your family?
- jolmg 5mo ago> would you prioritize a stranger over a member of your family? I'll preface by saying that I don't have a pet. However, if one had to burn alive between a stranger's little girl and my cat, it's easier to empathize, "what if that were my daughter?". It's easy to imagine the father's pain, and because the girl is human, it's easier to imagine what might be going on in the little girl's head as well. As the heat's becoming too strong for her to bear, it's easier to imagine her expression, her pain, and her fear. It's harder to imagine and empathize with what might be going on through a cat's head. They don't think as we do and don't express themselves as we do. It's not like one can't anthropomorphize and empathize that way, but it's not the same as empathizing with a human. It's harder to imagine and feel their thoughts and emotions to the same level of detail. I'd feel for the cat, but I think the girl burning alive would give me the worse nightmares.
- efitz 5mo agoAs long as this practice is legal then I am unwilling to be an organ donor.
- JimTheMan 5mo agoAll of these comments are making me realise that the US is an incredibly low trust environment, where people think horrific things are going to happen to them without the their/or their families consent. And who am I to judge? Maybe that is the reality.
- BalinKing 5mo ago> horrific things are going to happen to them without the their/or their families consent Indeed, that is (allegedly) the case with organ donation: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/us/organ-transplants-donors-alive.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/us/organ-transplants-dono...
- Gooblebrai 5mo agoI'm curious, before you knew about this article, why were you willing to be an organ donor?
- croes 5mo agoSo the definition of being dead is an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. Does this mean the donor was (1) or can the "revive" after (2)?
- netbioserror 5mo agoAh sweet, manmade horrors beyond comprehension.