Scientific Study to Overturn Brain Dead?

This has been all over the news for the last month, so I won’t say too much more. Just bring it to your attention if you missed it.  Ira Pastor is the CEO of the Bioquark a biotech firm located in Philadelphia. He will be spearheading the study approved by the IRB. (Institutional Review Board) All studies using human subjects must have this approval.

They are currently looking for 20 patients, pronounced “brain dead” to begin the study.

I am actually looking forward to the results of this study. There have been any studies on those pronounced “brain dead” in many years. I think the last was the Minnesota Criteria where they stopped using EEG’s to see the brain activity as it would alarm parents.

Pastor believes that brain-dead individuals, considered legally dead in America, are only mostly dead. Brain death, he says, is a curable illness.

At the point of death, everything BELOW the brain stem, which is technically unsupported, is still alive and quite functional and capable of doing stuff if properly supported.

Photo Credit Shutterstock Underwater.

A trial to see if it is possible to regenerate the brains of patients who have been declared clinically dead has been approved. Reanima Advanced Biosciences aims to use stem cells, injections of peptides, and nerve stimulation to reverse “brain death.

The study aims to use stem cells, injections of peptides, and nerve stimulation to reverse “brain death as noted in the current clinical examination.

Based on the premise that many amphibians, fish, and even some mammals can regenerate large portions of their brains after severe trauma. They don’t need cutting-edge therapies or laboratory conditions to recover from brain death; they just sleep for a while and wake up with fresh brains.

Why don’t humans and other primates have this regenerative ability?

That’s one of the main questions the ReAnima teams are looking to answer right now.

“There is no ‘magic bullet’ for reversing brain death,” says Ira Pastor.  “In this project, we’re employing a combination of biological regenerative tools, along with an array of medical devices used for stimulation of patients with other severe disorders of consciousness, such as comas and vegetative states.”

Regenerating a brain-dead patient’s nervous system will not be a simple task. “Nature thrives on complexity,” says Pastor; and the ReAnima project’s goal is to “train” severely damaged brains to rebuild themselves around whatever neural structure remains intact, using a combination of the latest therapeutic techniques.

If individuality boils down to nothing more than connections between neurons, but “based on several factors, we are placing our bets that the human mind is much more than that,” he says, “and on the idea that memory will be a recoverable commodity over time.”

Many of our bodies’ cells die and are renewed thousands of times over our lives, yet we manage to hold onto our personalities – even those of us who suffer from Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Is brain death any different?

The Study

Patients will receive daily peptide injections directly into their spinal cords to go with biweekly stem cell treatments, according to the New York Daily News. They’ll also receive stem cell injections in the brain along with laser and nerve stimulation techniques used to awaken comatose patients. For a six-month period, the patients will be observed for signs of regeneration in the upper spinal cord, which regulates respiration and heartbeat.

“If someone wants to criticize us for helping the family whose 3-year-old accidentally drowned in the pool, or whose 16-year-old flew off a motorcycle with no helmet on, who do not accept the statement, ‘Sorry, there is nothing else we can do for them,’ from a global modern medical establishment that generates $7 trillion annually, then so be it,”

Dr. Pastor believes that there is still much to learn about the depths of human life, and this project will serve as a stepping stone in unveiling the deepest mysteries of the human mind.

I’ll be following this groundbreaking study.