Is a human considered dead if there is no brain activity? What is the medical definition of death?
212167
Determining when death actually occurs\n\nHistorically, attempts to define the exact moment of death have been problematic. Death was once defined as the cessation of heartbeat (cardiac arrest) and of breathing, but the development of CPR and prompt defibrillation posed a challenge, rendering the previous definition inadequate. This earlier definition of death is now called "clinical death", and even after it occurs, breathing and heartbeat may be restarted in some cases. Events which were causally linked to death in the past are now prevented from having an effect; even without a functioning heart and lungs, a person can be sustained with life-support devices. In addition to such extremes, there is a growing number of people who would quickly die if their organ transplants or cardiac pacemakers failed.\n\nToday, where a definition of the moment of death is required, doctors and coroners usually turn to "brain death" or "biological death": people are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases (cf. persistent vegetative state). It is presumed that a stoppage of electrical activity indicates the end of consciousness. However, suspension of consciousness must be permanent, and not transient, as occurs during sleep, and especially a coma. In the case of sleep, EEGs can easily tell the difference. Identifying the moment of death is important in cases of transplantation, as organs for transplant (the brain excluded) must be harvested as quickly as possible after the death of the body.\n\nAmong human beings, brain activity is a necessary condition to legal personhood in the United States. "It appears that once brain death has been determined … no criminal or civil liability will result from disconnecting the life-support devices." (Dority v. Superior Court of San Bernardino County, 193 Cal.Rptr. 288, 291 (1983))\n\nHowever, those maintaining that only the neo-cortex of the brain is necessary for consciousness sometimes argue that only electrical activity there should be considered when defining death. Eventually it is likely that the criterion for death will be the permanent and irreversible loss of cognitive function, as evidenced by the death of the cerebral cortex. All hope of recovering human thought and personality is then gone. However, at present, in most places the more conservative definition of death — cessation of electrical activity in the whole brain, as opposed to just in the neo-cortex — has been adopted (for example the Uniform Determination Of Death Act in the United States). In 2005, the case of Terri Schiavo brought the question of brain death and artificial sustainment to the front of American politics. Generally, in such contested cases the cause of death is anoxia. Oxygen deprivation for about seven minutes is sufficient to kill the cerebral cortex.\n\nEven in these cases, the determination of death can be difficult. EEGs can detect spurious electrical impulses when none exists, while there have been cases in which electrical activity in a living brain has been too low for EEGs to detect. Because of this, hospitals often have elaborate protocols for determining death involving EEGs at widely separated intervals.\n\nThere are many anecdotal references to people being declared dead by physicians and then coming back to life, sometimes days later in their own coffin, or when embalming procedures are just about to begin. Stories of people actually being buried alive (which must assume no embalming) led one inventor in the early 20th century to design an alarm system, with a bell and a cord that could be pulled from inside the coffin.\n\nBecause of the difficulties in determining death, under most emergency protocols, a first responder is not authorized to pronounce a patient dead; some EMT training manuals, for example, specifically state that a person is not to be assumed dead unless there are clear and obvious indications that death has occurred
221030
Your heart stops beating. Your synapses slow their firing until you are brain dead and no electrical current is flowing through the nervous system. Your body will generally expel any waste matter (air, urine, feces) being held. Sometime around this time, you will either discover that there is an afterlife of some sort, or you will blink into nothingness, with absolutely no consciousness to be aware of the fact that there is no afterlife. The body will begin the approach to rigor mortise. And bacteria will begin decomposing the body. Years and years later, only ash (and perhaps fossilized bones) will be left of your body. If there is an afterlife, you will never be able to tell anyone. If there isn't, you will never be able to tell anyone. Those who say they know the truth about the afterlife, either way, are not intellectually honest. Which is why this question will continue to evoke philosophical debate ad infinitum.
476700
Being a christian, my personal opinion is that life is precious & we must do our atmost best to preserve that using all method. However having said that, if the spirit has left the body, brain dead in a comatose state & will die naturally with no artificail life support than we should not prelong with addictives the likes of what you mentioned.
241258
Nope, most animals have no concept of death and very little interest in dead animals except as a source of food. Some social animals will become distressed when a member of their group dies just as they would if it became lost, but they show no evidence of understanding the concept of death as opposed to simply being concerned that the animal is no longer their.\n\n\nThere is any amount of evidence for this from chimps carrying around dead babies and trying to force them to feed to buffalo being shot form a distance continuing to graze undisturbed over the bodies of their companions killed just minutes before. Most animals simply don't comprehend death. Elephants are extremely unusual in that they genuinely do seem to understand death, or at least comprehend that it is not the same as simply not being present.
177464
Our consciousness remains after death and exists before birth. Think about it. How much of you is still you if you lose a finger? ane eye? Both legs? If you can still be "you", even if most of you is gone, your consciousness still remains. It doesn't even need you to have conscious thinking (think dreams etc.).\nWhen you die, your consciousness remains. That consciousness can be at peace or disturbed depending on how you lived your life. If you are filled with anger or sorrow or craving you will remain as a conscious being without a body, clinging to the objects or places of your attachments.\n\nHope that helps.
543341
A multi-faceted concept. Life may refer to the ongoing process of which living things are a part; the period between the birth (or a point at which the entity can be considered to be living) and death of an organism; the condition of an entity that has been born (or reached the point in its existence at which it can be established to be alive) and has yet to die; and that which makes a living thing alive.
492858
We all wake up dead, it's just a matter of how dead we are. Some are brain dead, others are socially dead, and still others are sexually dead.
247104
if the person dies immediately, something either clogged the bloodflow-like a clot. or the heart's "electrical system" could tell the heart to beat too fast, too slow, or not at all.\nthe person dies.\nthe heart is really just a pump. when it stops pumping, the blood settles to the lowest part of the body. oxygen can no longer get to the cells. everything stops functioning.
52919
The quality or condition of being mortal. \nMortals considered as a group; the human race. \nDeath, especially of large numbers; heavy loss of life: the mortality wrought by an epidemic. \nDeath rate. \nThe rate of failure or loss: the high mortality among family-run farms.
581834
death is physical\nsoul never dies it always sustain\nand soul is like a part of god and it is always remain inside a human to direct him in a right path but its all the brain of human who took decision
134719
I died when I was 9, just for 2 minutes and then I came back. It was not scarey at all. Stop being so morbid and enjoy life while you have it. You are not feeling death, you are depressed or bi polar, you need to see a therapist.
622178
There are many things that probably happen when you die.  Your body is doing funny things and you could just be hallucinating from lack of oxygen after your heart slows/stops sending blood to your brain.
242814
I'm not going to give you the comforting fiction here. I'll just tell you the truth. Nothing happens to people after death. The last thing that happens to a person is the experience of the body failing and then ceasing to function. All the body systems, including brain processing, stop functioning. The individual loses consciousness for the last time. That final experience is the end. The person's lifeless body is then removed, etc. But THE PERSON no longer exists.
328757
if you dont breath for more then 4 minutes the brain cells start dieing - to hold on for longer would require a lot of practise. generally you pass out and the brain automatically starts the breathing process.\nonce brain cells die - there is no recovery - and you never know what part of the brain is dieing
473208
Life.\n\nDefinition:  An active condition that distinguishes plants, animals, humans, and spirit beings from inanimate objects.  Physical living things generally have the capabilities of growth, metabolism, response to external stimuli, and reproduction. Vegetation has active life but not life as a sense-possessing soul. In earthly souls, animal and human, there are both active life-force to animate them and breath to sustain that life-force.\n\nLife in the fullest sense, as applied to intelligent persons, is perfect existence with the right to it.  The human soul is not immortal.  But faithful servants of God have the prospect of everlasting life in perfection—on earth for many, \nWhat is the purpose of human life?\n\nBasic to having purpose in our lives is recognition of the Source of life.  If life were the product of mindless chance, our existence would, of necessity, be without purpose, and there would be no dependable future for which we could plan.  But Acts 17:24, 25, 28 informs us: “The God that made the world and all the things in it . . . gives to all persons life and breath and all things. For by him we have life and move and exist.”  Revelation 4:11, which is addressed to God, adds: “You are worthy, Jehovah, even our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power, because you created all things, and because of your will they existed and were created.” \n\nFrustration results from a life course that conflicts with the Creator’s requirements and his guidelines for happiness. Galatians 6:7, 8 warns:  “Do not be misled: God is not one to be mocked. For whatever a man is sowing, this he will also reap; because he who is sowing with a view to his flesh will reap corruption from his flesh.”—Also Galatians 5:19-21. \nWe find the greatest happiness possible now and our lives take on richness of meaning when we apply Bible principles and put first the doing of God’s will. We do not enrich God by serving him; he teaches us ‘to benefit ourselves.’  (Isaiah 48:17)  The Bible counsels:  “Become steadfast, unmovable, always having plenty to do in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in connection with the Lord.”—1 Cor. 15:58.\n\nThe Bible sets before us the prospect of eternal life in perfection if we put faith in Jehovah’s provisions for life and walk in his ways.  That hope is solidly based; it will not lead to disappointment; activity in harmony with that hope can fill our lives with real meaning even now.—John 3:16; Titus 1:2; 1 Peter 2:6.\n\nIf you would like further information or a free home Bible study, please contact Jehovah's Witnesses at the local Kingdom Hall.  Or visit http://www.watchtower.org
164379
This is a more complex question than it seems. In order to fully define Death we would have to fully define Life, and that has not been done yet. Life can be described, and there is the Cell Theory of Life, but what 'life' is, no one can say yet.\nHowever, it is plain that everything living moves somehow, and that it reproduces somehow, and that whatever is living must use and excrete whatever substances it needs in order to keep on living. In most cases we are talking here about nutrition and respiration, respiration being the more critical. When respiration ceases either on a cellular level or throughout the entire organism, everything shuts down, because chemical reactions in the cells and between them can no longer take place. Some bacteria will go into a spore stage when this happens, and can thus survive extremes of temperatures and dehydration (like anthrax and TB). Generally in the absence of oxygen, cells lose their ph balance and become acidic, which upsets all chemical reactions in the cell. Conversely, anaerobic bacteria like botulism, when exposed to oxygen, go through a similar process of having all chemical reactions messed up.\nTherefore, although we cannot say what exactly 'death' is, we recognize it in animals by: an absence of respiration, an absence of pulse, an absence of reflexes (due to brain and nerve death), an absence of sensation, an absence of conciousness, and an inability to eat or reproduce. It is further noted by an absence of brain wave activity.\nIn plants death is noted by an inability to rehydrate, lack of response to stimuli, inability to reproduce or respire, and limpness.\nIn microbes, death is noted by an absence of cell division or reproduction, or by bursting of the cell walls.
422863
I suspect you know this is true, but you wish it were otherwise.  That is, you don't disagree -- but you'd like to be able to disagree.\n\nI think the statement is completely true.  Death is nothing to the dead -- since they no longer experience anything.  But also, death is nothing to the living:  Since we can only die once and there's absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it, there's nothing to be gained from wondering or worrying about death.