A biotech company in the US has been granted ethical permission to recruit 20 patients who have been declared clinically dead from a traumatic brain injury, to test whether parts of their central nervous system can be brought back to life. Scientists will use a combination of therapies, which include injecting the brain with stem cells and a cocktail of peptides, as well as deploying lasers and nerve stimulation techniques which have been shown to bring patients out of comas. The trial participants will have been certified dead and only kept alive through life support. They will be monitored for several months using brain imaging equipment to look for signs of regeneration, particularly in the upper spinal cord - the lowest region of the brain stem which controls independent breathing and heartbeat. The team believes that the brain stem cells may be able to erase their history and re-start life again, based on their surrounding tissue – a process seen in the animal kingdom in creatures like salamanders who can regrow entire limbs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...ought-back-to-life-in-groundbreaking-project/
Recruit? If it's possible to 'recruit' a brain-dead individual, that's got to be bigger news than any success in reviving such. Or maybe a dictionary definition has just been expanded.
A very critical part of the brain stem is the "reticular formation," but it is not a well segrated in location part: I. e. this seldom mentioned part of the brain, may the the most important. Quite possibly, it was the "brain stem" with other parts (medulla, pons, etc.) added later by evolution, but still is the central core of the brain stem.
