Can Stem Cells be Used to Reverse Brain Death?

Does death have to be final? According to a group of researchers from the U.S. and India, it might not have to be. In 2019, they’ll attempt to perform a feat that’s sure to spark heavy ethical debate: they'll use the latest in stem cell innovations in a first step toward bringing the dead back to life.

Researchers plan to tackle death itself by using a combination of therapies including stem cell injections and electronic nerve stimulation. The prospect of defying death might be appealing, but the studies could raise some ethical questions.

Raising the Dead

No, this isn’t science fiction, and Victor Frankenstein isn’t leading the project -- scientists really are hoping to raise the dead. Bioquark Inc., a U.S. company that researches human organ and tissue regeneration, along with Revita Life Sciences, in India, plan to conduct the experiment in July 2019.

The researchers plan on injecting the patients’ brains with stem cells and bioactive peptides, which they hope to stimulate into action with laser therapy and electronic nerve stimulation. They’ll monitor the patients for 15 days, studying any changes. No one is expecting to see any full resurrections quite yet, but researchers hope the experiment will be the first step toward reversing brain death in humans.

Raising Ethical Questions

The idea of overturning death may be appealing, but the study raises some questions in ethics. For example, the patients being studied all "died" of traumatic brain injuries, a cause of death the researchers seem particularly interested in reversing. Not all brain injuries involve areas responsible for personality, motor function or sensory input, but the question remains: if a brain is damaged enough to cause death, what might be left of the actual person if they’re brought back to life?

And then, what happens to the subjects during the studies? Early experiments will only be stepping stones toward actual reanimation, so numerous test subjects could be brought back to varying degrees, but not fully reanimated. What moral obligations, if any, do researchers have to those people?

Whether science truly can defy death remains to be seen. Who can say whether stem cells and electricity can actually revitalize a lifeless brain stem, let alone bring a person back to life? But then, just because we can do something, does that mean we should?

~ Here’s to Your Health and Wellness

References:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/are-stem-cells-the-answer-to-bringing-people-back-from-the-dead