What determines the point of death? What determines the barrier between life and death? Again I find myself disturbed by a new scientific experiment.
Scientists have been messing about with pigs brains. They have managed to bring back to life cells in their brains hours after slaughter. Now I don't understand all the ins and outs of this, but as far as I understand they had anaesthetists on hand just in case they detected consciousness. I think that tells me enough. That these scientists feel they could actually do bring back consciousness brings to mind the Frankenstein stories. The bringing back of life is sacred, and should only be performed by doctors in a hospital, not scientists in a lab.
We have connectors and receptors in the brain, and this experiment managed to restart the connections in the cells. Sort of like the electric socket meeting the point of electricity to start an implement. What it has proved is that cell death happens over a longer period of time than thought, and may have implications in the future for the time spent reviving people. Now while this may all be very interesting and commendable, with the experiment done all in the name of medical science, I still feel we are messing with things we don't understand. We are at the point almost of no return.
Cellular death is thought to occur swiftly and irreversibly, hitting the stage of non revival as awareness is lost, immediately. After that degeneration sets in and nothing can be done to halt it. Now it seems that may not be right. Cell death may not be irreversible. The experiments are happening over a longer and longer period of time with, so far, around ten hours after death being the longest cut off time. To be able to bring back cell connections after all that time makes me feel incredibly uneasy. At the moment everyone is exclaiming about the medical through roads this will have an impact on, and it is wonderful that the experiment may help people in the future. 'Chemical blood' was pumped through the brains of pigs slaughtered for food for about six hours, and lo and behold the cell death lessened and certain nerve, blood vessel and glial cells started to restore function ability. Now comes the lesson. Apparently, and I didn't know this because I was useless at science at school, glial cells are important as they are support cells that hold up neurons, providing nutrients and oxygen and insulation. They also clean up dead cells.
The definition of what they discovered is stated as 'not a living brain' but 'a cellularly active brain'. There was no consciousness detected. So, hailed as a breakthrough in the possibility of healing stroke victims for example, no one seems to feel the unease that I do. While all this is commendable has no one thought about the implications for us if we eat meat? The fact is we eat animals that have once had brains. Those brains have had cellular activity. At what point did that cellular activity die? At what point are those animals considered dead? Are we in fact eating animals that could have still had working brains? Neurons are important in the working of a body as they are the communicators. It is the main component of nervous tissue, there are several different types, and all animals have them. They are like transmitters of information as they pass this from one cell to another. My worry is that these may eventually be the transmitters of endorphins, associated with emotion and pain.
I am a meat eater. I source my meat from what I believe is a reputable source, ethically and humanly killed. This experiment makes me wonder about the deeper connotations of it. While consciousness was not detected I hope that neither were endorphins, because that sheds a whole new light on how we go about the slaughter business. To determine when is the point of death. To know that at the moment there is a possibility of a revival of cells to repair a brain. Does this mean that the point of death has shifted? It's all a little unsettling to me.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-04-pig-ethical-brain.html
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/209/8/ii
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron
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