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Brain death is used as an indicator of legal death in many jurisdictions, [6] but it is defined inconsistently and often confused by the public. [7] Various parts of the brain may keep functioning when others do not anymore, and the term "brain death" has been used to refer to various combinations.
The certification applies to somatic death, corresponding to death of the person, which has varying definitions but most commonly describes a lack of vital signs and brain function. [9] Death at the level of cells, called molecular death or cell death , follows a matter of hours later. [ 10 ]
The phenomenon has been observed to occur several minutes after the removal of medical ventilators used to pump air in and out of brain-dead patients. [4] It also occurs during testing for apnea—that is, suspension of external breathing and motion of the lung muscles—which is one of the criteria for determining brain death used for example by the American Academy of Neurology.
Over time, brain death became the more popular definition of biological death, and doctors codified this view in a 2019 position statement by the American Academy of Neurology.
Brainstem death is a clinical syndrome defined by the absence of reflexes with pathways through the brainstem – the "stalk" of the brain, which connects the spinal cord to the mid-brain, cerebellum and cerebral hemispheres – in a deeply comatose, ventilator-dependent patient.
Researchers studying the brain’s final moments have gained new insight into the “wave of death” that occurs before a brain’s activity fully flatlines. When neural activity stops, it doesn ...
For a patient to maintain consciousness, two important neurological components must function impeccably. The first is the cerebral cortex which is the gray matter covering the outer layer of the brain. The other is a structure located in the brainstem, called reticular activating system (RAS or ARAS). Injury to either or both of these ...
Closed-head injuries can range from mild injuries to debilitating traumatic brain injuries and can lead to severe brain damage or death. Common closed-head injuries include: [5] concussion – a head injury resulting in temporary dysfunction of normal brain function. Almost half of the total concussions reported each year are sports-related [5]