Brain death is the irreversible end of all brain activity (including involuntary activity necessary to sustain life) due to total necrosis of the cerebral neurons following loss of brain oxygenation. It should not be confused with a persistent vegetative state. Patients classified as brain dead can have their organs surgically removed for organ donation.
Brain death, either of the whole brain or the brain stem, is used as a legal indicator of death in many jurisdictions.
Read more about Brain Death: Legal History, Medical Criteria, Consciousness, Organ Donation
Famous quotes containing the words brain and/or death:
“To me the sole hope of human salvation lies in teaching Man to regard himself as an experiment in the realization of God, to regard his hands as God’s hand, his brain as God’s brain, his purpose as God’s purpose. He must regard God as a helpless Longing, which longed him into existence by its desperate need for an executive organ.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Once one’s up against it, the precise manner of one’s death has obviously small importance.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)