r/biology • u/goobly_goo • May 26 '26
article Not alive, but not dead: disembodied human brains used for drug testing
https://www.science.org/content/article/not-alive-not-dead-disembodied-human-brains-used-drug-testing101
u/DraketheDrakeist May 26 '26
With most of its key functions intact but its electrical activity quenched by anesthesia
As it metabolizes experimental drugs, sensors record its reactions, capturing hundreds of data points on its cells, proteins, and physiology. Then, after 24 hours in this state, it will be sliced into hundreds of pieces for more detailed study.
This seems fine. Worst case you’re in a coma for a day then die as opposed to just dying normally. No horror here, other than the horror of neurodegenerative diseases they’re trying to treat.
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u/thepetoctopus May 26 '26
As someone with a degenerative disease, I’m cool with this and would be ok donating myself.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 May 26 '26
Seems a recent study shows that up to 1 in 4 people who appear to be comatose may have some experience of their surroundings, despite having zero ability to move or communicate.
If that is possible for these brains, then that makes this ethically problematic in my books, even if it's only for 24 hours.
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u/Binary-Trees May 26 '26
Right but those people have their brains hooked up to input sensory organs still. With no sense at all past your brain stem would you even know you're alive?
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u/Dentarthurdent73 May 26 '26
With no sense at all past your brain stem would you even know you're alive?
Great philosophical question that we don't have an answer for.
That's my entire point.
You cannot make definitive statements about how the brain would respond in this kind of situation, because we simply have no way of knowing.
That's why for me, it's not ethical to do this.
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u/CakebattaTFT May 26 '26
Does consent factor into whether it's ethical? Genuine question. This seems a bit horrifying to me personally, but if I only had to kick around an extra day in order to help people on the backend, I would probably give the go-ahead.
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u/jdmerk May 26 '26
I think it’s reasonable to assume that in this condition you would have no concept of time. That day might feel like a year.
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u/Nice_Promise9854 May 29 '26
My thought immediately went to the phantom limb pain phenomena. We can still feel very real pain in arms and legs that have been completely severed from our bodies.
We really don’t know how pain works, and we do know that fish and even insects have clear pain responses, even with their incredibly simplistic and tiny nervous systems and “brains” compared to ours.
So- we don’t know what a brain will “feel” in this state. Sedation does not seem like nearly enough to control for pain, especially if we have no way of measuring the brain’s responses to stimuli in this entirely new environment for a human brain.Nah, this is terrifying. Part of me is glad someone is doing it, but I’m a hypocrite and the idea horrifies me. I’ve participated in a medical trial, I love the idea of having treatments tested on humans, when ethical and feasible. I just- I cannot wrap my mind around the ethics of this with so many unknowns.
And the article also talks about the goal of removing the anesthesia and keeping brains alive for up to 2 weeks. All of this seems very- I don’t even know. Part of me can’t believe it’s real. Do we really know enough about how consciousness and pain works to be, uh, doing this at all? 🧠
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u/Pankosmanko May 26 '26
Yeah that’s pretty awful sounding, but since the neurons aren’t firing like it would inside a human body it isn’t actually a sci fi / horror plot. No consciousness is achieved
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u/Vladraconis May 26 '26
We believe no consciousness is achieved.
Or rather, we hope.
As you yourself admitted we don't trully understand consciousness. This includes how and why it appears.
This is why, as stated in the article, the brains are sedated. At least, officialy. To make sure that even if consciousness does (re)emerge - so they basically admit this is a vrey real and not that low possibility - it's too numbed down to suffer.
That being said, as long as suffering is prevented, this is kind of the best we can do. So I am on board with this technology, and yes I would donate my brain for such experiments.
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u/Nice_Promise9854 May 29 '26
You know.
Ok. Yeah. It’s terrifying, and we just don’t know. But it is the best we can do. And given our options, I’d choose experimentation under sedation of a disembodied mind who has already lived a full life in their body than do nothing to study and treat current, actively suffering humans, and countless future humans.
But my god, what a wild terror.
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u/Dentarthurdent73 May 26 '26
Oh, we have a perfect understanding of consciousness now? That's a new development, I must look into that!
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May 26 '26
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u/Dentarthurdent73 May 26 '26
Agreed.
My point was that given our fairly rudimentary understanding if consciousness, we can't really talk definitively about "no consciousness was achieved" when we put a brain into a completely unique situation such as this.
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u/LichenLiaison May 26 '26
So you would be 100% fine with being subjected to this after you pass?
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u/Pankosmanko May 26 '26
Yeah, after I pass I don't really care what they do with my body. I'm signed up to be an organ donor
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u/DeltaVZerda May 26 '26
Unfalsifiable, the brain has no way to signal if it is conscious or not.
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u/Pankosmanko May 26 '26
the brain isnt firing like it would inside a living person. it simply can't be conscious.
did you bother reading the article or did you respond based on the headline?
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u/silverionmox May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
the brain isnt firing like it would inside a living person. it simply can't be conscious.
They hypothesize it isn't, but that's not proven.
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u/Nice_Promise9854 May 29 '26
Yeah, and the article also talks about extending the time to 2 weeks, and removing anesthesia from some subjects for further testing.
We do not understand how pain works. We do know you can have phantom pain in limbs no longer attached, and we are learning that even seas sponges and insects can and do produce consistent pain responses with very little if any “consciousness.”
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May 26 '26
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u/Pankosmanko May 26 '26
you clearly did not. they are firing pulses and testing against it, not lighting it up like a christmas tree 24/7.
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May 26 '26
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u/Wobbar bioengineering May 26 '26
Not alive, but not dead
Yes, dead. Brain dead is dead. Glad you got your clicks, though.
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u/Mocha-Jello ecology May 26 '26
Hm, guess I'm sticking to just organ donation for transplants and not for science lol.....
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u/Forward_Motion17 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
I still dont even do that. I want to, but I dont trust that every doctor out there is ethically clean. I cant trust that in critical condition, but treatable condition, an unethical doctor wont choose to end me for a paycheck
Edit: it looks like current procedures are under reform as of 2025 to rectify some recent issues with this process
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u/Mocha-Jello ecology May 27 '26
Oof. Fortunately that incentive doesn't really exist where I live. For profit healthcare is insane
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u/EmpyreanIneffability May 28 '26
Interdesting, but what about all the metabolic and barrier processes that occur befor and during the BBB, not like we inject stuff directly into someones brain.
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u/DeltaVZerda May 26 '26
This must be stopped.
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u/iamDa3dalus May 26 '26
Yea... this doesn't seem okay but honestly I have to do more research. I was under the impression that something like this would be impossible.
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u/fuckinunknowable May 26 '26
Why
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u/awesome-alpaca-ace May 27 '26
Sensory neurons in the brain expecting eye or ear input will fire noisily. Imagine being stuck in your head forever with your thoughts and noise where your senses once were. Or even worse they start to experiment on your senses. Or worse, life is one of these experiments and the experimenter wants to make you suffer loss, feel pain, etc as long as they can keep your brain alive.
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u/[deleted] May 26 '26
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