About 5 years ago, Yale School of Medicine neuroscientist Zvonimir Vrselja and his colleagues shocked the medical community with a groundbreaking experiment.. In the study, they were able to remove the brain of a slaughterhouse pig from its head, then deprived it of oxygen at room temperature for four hours, and then connected it to a resuscitator and revived it.. The results of this study shook the scientific community, writes Popular Mechanics.

The living brain's vascular system, also known as the network of blood vessels, is known to transport oxygenated, nutrient-rich blood to the brain through arteries and capillaries. Therefore, in their study, scientists used a special BrainEx resuscitation device.. Using this device, they were able to pump a mixture of preservatives and drugs into the dead brain, targeting pathways that are normally damaged due to loss of oxygen..

U Focus. Technologies has its own Telegram channel. Subscribe so you don't miss the latest and most exciting news from the world of science!

The study authors note that the mixture contained a blood substitute consisting of molecules that balance the pH levels of cells, as well as drugs that prevent an excessive immune response and antibiotics.

What happened next surprised the scientists: the gray cortex of the brain turned red, the cells resumed producing proteins, and the neurons began to show signs of metabolic activity, as living things do.. In simple terms, the pig's previously dead brain was now performing cellular functions again, but it was not conscious. According to Dr. Vrselja, what he and his colleagues found was quite extreme: the brain could not be called completely “alive,” but it also did not appear dead.

According to resuscitation, cardiac arrest and critical care expert Dr. Lance Becker, the result of this experiment contradicts everything science previously knew about death.. Moreover, the scientist also stated that at the moment the world, in fact, is on the verge of a real paradigm shift, since we will have to reconsider what life is and what death is.

After testing on pigs, Vrselja and his colleagues are now studying donated human brains using their BrainEx machine. This is a more delicate operation than experimenting on pigs and has serious ethical implications..

During an experiment with pig brains, scientists were convinced that there was no brain activity associated with perception.. To do this, the team included sedatives in the formula that prevented electrical activity. The scientists also completed the experiment after 6 hours. However, experiments with the human brain require greater caution.

According to Hank Greeley, a biomedical legal expert at Stanford University in California, if the human brain were slowly approaching consciousness, it would be controversial from an ethical, legal and scientific point of view..

Vrselja told the publication that he and his colleagues “do not intend to connect anyone at the moment of death to their BrainEx machine.”. But what they have achieved so far is a significant step towards proving that brain death may not be as permanent as we once thought. Meanwhile, researchers have had some success in keeping the brain " They hope to help patients with diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Previously, Focus wrote that scientists were able to regenerate the brain: for this they used unique transforming cells.