Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing

Re:Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used fo... by DontBreakAlex on Wednesday May 20, 2026 @06:52PM (#48215409)

Dude we can't revive brains minutes after cardiac arrest, when they're inside their bodies, even when we're TRYING TO DO SO. You can think about "what if" if you like the though experiment, but seriously arguing that there's any way that brains could recover consciousness the next day because you gave them nutrients is like arguing that voyager could crash back on earth and injure someone after being flung backwards around a loose interstellar body.

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Re:Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used fo... by wanoir on Wednesday May 20, 2026 @09:30PM (#48216682)

This 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

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Re:Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used fo... by DontBreakAlex on Wednesday May 20, 2026 @10:41PM (#48217178)

My 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

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Re:Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used fo... by wanoir on Thursday May 21, 2026 @01:52AM (#48218426)

> 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?

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Re:Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used fo... by tomhow on Thursday May 21, 2026 @04:58AM (#48219725)

Please don't fulminate on HN. The guidelines make it clear we're trying for something better here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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