The "resurrection" of the dead pigs, the promise of progress and the source of questions – – News84Media.com

Scientists on Wednesday succeeded in reviving blood circulation and functioning of cells in the bodies of dead pigs for a few hours. This medical achievement is a promise of significant progress on the surgical front. But if science has never revived the pigs, a phenomenon observed during the experiment has opened the door to the possibility of dizziness.

The story of living pigs. Yet cold as death, pigs were brought back to a form of life, their biological functions restored, Wednesday, Aug. 3, by US researchers.

In 2019 itself, these same scientists had already stunned the medical world by managing to restore cell function in their brains, hours after beheading pigs.

In their latest research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the team took this technique even further, expanding to the animals entire body.

They caused heart attacks in anesthetized pigs, stopping blood flow and depriving their cells of oxygen without oxygen, mammalian cells die.

After an hour, they injected the carcasses with a liquid containing swines blood (taken from their lives) and a synthetic form of hemoglobin the protein that carries oxygen in red blood cells. As well as drugs that protect cells and prevent blood clots from forming.

Blood started flowing again and for the next six hours many cells, including vital organs such as the heart, liver, and kidneys, started functioning again.

The good news for surgery: Vital organs can be regenerated for transplant. Because until now, after a few minutes of circulatory arrest, organs were not graftable, explains Dr Jean-tienne Bazin, head of the Center for Perioperative Medicine at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital.

However, the pigs cells were working hours later when they shouldnt, said study lead author and researcher Nenad Seston at Yale University during a press briefing.

OrganEx this is the name of this technology could thus enable us to enrich the bank of transplantable organs, rejoices Jean-tienne Bazin. This could potentially save the lives of people awaiting a transplant.

For Sam Parnia of the Department of Medicine at the same university, this truly remarkable study also shows that death is a biological process that can be treated and reversed hours later.

Benjamin Curtis, a philosopher specializing in ethics at Nottingham Trent University in Britain, said the medical definition of death may need to be updated.

Given this study, many processes that we thought were irreversible would not be, he told AFP. And, according to the current medical definition of death, a person cannot actually be dead for hours, with some processes continuing for some time beyond the cessation of bodily functions.

Philippe Bizzourne, an anesthesiologist-resuscitator at the University Hospital of Nantes, is by no means surprised: A person does not die of his cells.

In Monts dAre, where this Breton was during a fire that devastated the forests of his childhood, a green grass appeared under the ashes. Like cells in a non-living body, the seeds have completely come back to life under the remains of burnt vegetation, explains the doctor in an attempt to popularize.

But beware of fantasies, Dr. Warns Bijorn, for whom these pigs were not brought back to life. Suppose we managed to restore their organs to their functions. In short, for anesthesiologists, science does not raise the dead.

But as always, this experience will be taken over by transhumanist groups such as Google X Lab, says Philippe Bizzourne.

In fact, barely revealed to the public, the experience already raises a myriad of ethical and even philosophical questions.

Even if science fiction helps ask us the right bioethical questions, in this case, there is no place for the Doctor to this day: among those fueling these controversies, many have, according to him, any The idea is not what is happening in medical reality.

Far from sensation, however, the response noted during the pig experiment raises more questions: according to the account of one of the studys authors, Stephen Latham, a very large majority of the animals made powerful movements with their heads and necks. . It was quite surprising to have the people in the room, he told reporters.

If the origin of these movements remains unknown, the scientist assures that at no time was electrical activity recorded in the pigs brainsthus, a priori, except for the recovery of consciousness.

Benjamin Curtis believes that these head movements are nonetheless a major concern, as recent research in neuroscience has suggested that electrical activity in the brain cannot be measured, even when conscious. The experience may continue.

And the doctor Jean-tienne Bazin to explain another variable: during the experiment, anesthesia or hypothermia of the animals can disrupt the electrical activity, and thus distort the diagnosis.

So an unresolved question, the doctor-professor continues: How to explain the movements of these pigs? Was it simply the fruit of motor stimuli that the spinal cord automatically sends, or conscious commands of their brains, that would have been awake? For this scientist, it is extraordinary not to completely invalidate this last event.

His colleague, Philippe Bijorn, understands the hopes that such an ability can generate, but deep down, fortunately, death lies before us, otherwise we would not be able to live, says the doctor philosopher.

To be reborn or not to be reborn? It might not be a question.

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The "resurrection" of the dead pigs, the promise of progress and the source of questions - - News84Media.com