Can We Regenerate the Brains of the Dead (and NOT have a zombie apocalypse)?

All you doomsday preppers might want to speed up production on your underground bunkers because there is a new trial to see if it is possible to regenerate the brains of the dead. Jokes aside, this important trial has finally won approval from healthcare watch dog groups and is on its way. Dr. Himanshu Bansal, in collaboration with Revita Life sciences and Bioquark Inc, has been granted permission to recruit 20 patients who have been declared clinically dead due to a traumatic brain injury. Link

It is called the ReAnima Project and recruitment has already begun. Scientists will use several therapies, like injecting the brain with stem cells, that have shown to bring patients out of comas. The trial participants, currently, are only alive via life support. Brain imaging equipment will monitor them for several months using brain imaging equipment to look for any sign of regeneration in the upper spinal cord, which controls independent breathing and heartbeat.

The team hypothesizes that the brain stem cells may be able to erase their damaged history and re-start life giving processes again. Dr. Ira Poastor, ceo OF Bioquark Inc.,has said "We hope to see resuls within the first two o three months."

Of course, there are skeptics. Among them is Dr. Dean Burnett, a neuroscientist from the University of Cardiff's Centre for Medical Education, has said: "Saving individual parts might be helpful but it's a long way from resurrecting a whole working brain, in a functional, undamaged state.”

This image is from Flickr User Neil Conway and is licensed under Creative Commons.