Pig tests could pave way for human brain transplants

Pig brains have been kept alive outside their bodies for the first time in a controversial new experiment.

The brains of hundreds of pigs survived for up to 36 hours after the animals had been decapitated, researchers revealed.

The experiment is significant because pig brains bear a striking similarity in the way they function to human brains.

Keeping a brain alive outside the body could pave the way for brain transplants.

Currently, one of the major hurdles for transferring a brain to another body is the rapid death of brain cells. But the breakthrough experiment – if it can be replicated in humans – could bring the possibility much closer.

Apart from transplants, the ability to keep a brain alive outside the body could be invaluable to scientists researching conditions such as Alzheimer’s.

Scientist Dr Nenad Sestan, who led the Yale University team, disclosed his methods in a meeting at the National institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.

Researchers took the heads of between 100 and 200 pigs from a slaughterhouse and resuscitated their brains while detached from the body.

The organs were connected to a closedloop system dubbed ‘BrainEX’ by scientists. it pumped key areas with artificial oxygen-rich blood to sustain life. in what Dr Sestan called a ‘mind-boggling’ and ‘unexpected’ result, billions of cells in the brains were found to be alive and healthy.

He told the NiH it is possible the brains could be kept alive indefinitely and additional steps could be taken to restore awareness, according to a report in the Massachusetts institute of Technology’s Technology Review. The neuroscientist said his team chose not to try either because ‘this is uncharted territory’.

Dr Sestan said the brains they operated on were definitely not alive or conscious.