ABOVE: Angiogram of BrainEx-treated pig brain from aerial view (left), sagittal view (center), and coronal view (right)
Z. VRSELJA ET AL.
In a paper published today (April 17) in Nature, researchers induced blood circulation and molecular and cellular function in the brains of pigs up to four hours after the animals had died. The paper reports observations of spontaneous synaptic activity, metabolism, and reduced cell death in the pig brains, but global brain activity was absent.
“The new technology opens up opportunities to examine complex cell and circuit connections and functions that are lost when specimens are preserved in other ways,” says Andrea Beckel-Mitchener of the National Institute of Mental Health, in a press release. She was not part of the project, but her agency cofunded the research.
The team developed a system called BrainEx that can deliver artificial blood to an isolated pig brain, report the authors.
Although the brains ...
