Neurobiologists at China's Sun Yat-sen University have revived pigs' brains an hour after the animals died. Sometimes, they were able to keep the brains functioning for hours.
The trick was to use the animal's liver – the organ the body uses to purify its blood – as a kind of life support system to revive the brain after the time had elapsed.
This achievement represents a huge step forward in working out how to restore brain function after a patient has suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. That's when the heart stops beating abruptly. This causes a lot of problems in the body due to the rapid cessation of blood flow. The subsequent drop in circulation to parts of the body is called ischemia, and when it occurs in the brain, it can cause serious, irreparable damage within minutes. This is why the resuscitation window for cardiac arrest is so short.
It's known that multi-organ ischemia plays a role in the brain's ability to recover after a cardiac arrest, but the individual organs have not been fully investigated.
The research "Liver protects neuron viability and electrocortical activity in post-cardiac arrest brain injury" has been published on September 19, 2024 in EMBO Molecular Medicine.
If you're wondering why new energy vehicles (NEVs) are ever so popular in China – and it's not only because they are so affordable.
Just take Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong as an example. The metropolis of 13.3 million people has 671 supercharging stations for NEVs as of October 18, 2024, even surpassing the number of petrol stations.
And the city plans to build 1,000 supercharging stations by the end of this year.
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