Health security

Researchers can now keep a pig's brain alive outside of its body

A team of scientists have recently revealed they are able to keep the brain of a pig alive outside of its body for 36 hours after it has been decapitated.

Researcher Nenad Sestan, who led the group of Yale University scientists, discussed the findings at a recent National Institutes of Health conference centered on brain research.

Though the heads were no longer attached to the bodies, Sestan and his team were able to keep the brains alive by connecting them to a closed-loop system known as "BrainEX," which pumps body-temperature artificial blood to the necessary parts of the brain to keep it alive.

Sestan declined to comment further on the findings when reached by MIT Technology Review, but the findings are significant, with Sestan calling them "mind-boggling" and unexpected, since individual brain cells were found to be capable of normal activity, even if the decapitated pigs never regained consciousness.