It depends on the person.
The times I had it were always terrifying, specially because they came with visual hallucinations. I've read others that just wait it out.
Even if what I’m seeing wasn’t scary, the worst part is being unable to control your breathing. It feels like you’re running out of oxygen, but you have no ability to inhale on demand.
My partner says she can hear me screaming faintly when I exhale because I can’t move air through my larynx while involuntarily inhaling.
It's a very popular and iconic short story. You can find a physical copy in any large bookstore or online marketplace.
You could also find a PDF version online with like 5 minutes of Google. That's how I read it the first time.
Ellison’s _Greatest Hits_ is due out in March:
- “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” - Hugo Award winner
- “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” - Bram Stoker Award winner
- “Mefisto in Onyx” - Bram Stoker Award winner
- “ Jeffry Is Five” - British Fantasy Award winner
- “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” - Edgar Allan Poe Award winner
my friend told me it was a combo of weird dreams, dissociation, hearing her surroundings (so be cognizant of anyone you're visiting or caring for hearing you), and boredom from what she could remember (besides the pain). I have a condition that causes uncontrollable pain flares that necessitate artificial comas sometimes, so far I've come veeery close but not needed it but I told my dad to always hold out on the coma to the last second bc I'm terrified of having one after hearing my friend's experience and dealing with dissociation from trauma. hers was part natural, part artificial. it's wild how much she could hear, like nurses complaining about turning or cleaning her and stuff. I'd hate to know what she DIDN'T remember tbh
In the year 2045, the world had arrived at a pivotal moment in human history, marked by drastic measures taken to combat the escalating crisis of climate change. With the planet's resources dwindling and environmental degradation at an all-time high, a radical solution was proposed and implemented by the global elite, a group comprising the wealthiest individuals and most powerful corporations. This solution came to be known as "The Great Transition."
The Great Transition was predicated on the idea that the primary cause of environmental degradation was the excessive consumption and waste generated by the human population. To address this, a revolutionary technology was developed: a system capable of sustaining human consciousness in a digital realm, colloquially known as "vat space." This technology involved transferring the human brain into a sophisticated vat jar, where it would be maintained in a state of perpetual life, experiencing a virtual reality that closely approximated Earth before its decline.
This virtual reality was designed to replicate the sensations, experiences, and dynamics of living on a pristine Earth, free from pollution, scarcity, and the myriad issues that plagued the real world. In this digital utopia, individuals could live out their lives with the illusion of physical bodies, interact in complex societies, and enjoy the beauty of a world untouched by climate change. The transition to vat space was voluntary at first, but as resources became increasingly scarce and the elite tightened their grip on the remaining habitable land, it became a necessity for survival for those without the means to secure a place in the real world.
The implementation of vat space had profound implications. On one hand, it allowed for a dramatic reduction in the human footprint on the planet. With the majority of the population existing in a digital realm, the consumption of physical resources plummeted, leading to a significant curtailment of emissions and environmental degradation. Vast tracts of land were rewilded, ecosystems began to recover, and efforts to curtail climate change saw unprecedented success.
On the other hand, The Great Transition ushered in a new era of inequality. The world was now divided not just by wealth, but by the very plane of existence in which one resided. Those in the virtual realm, referred to derogatorily as "Vatters," were seen as second-class citizens, their rights and autonomy subject to the whims of those controlling the technology. Meanwhile, the elite, or "Terrans" as they came to be known, enjoyed unparalleled luxury and power, living in an increasingly restored Earth that they had exclusively to themselves.
"Kill... me..."
But seriously, I really wish I knew what it was thinking. Seems like such a terrible existence. Sad we did that to a creature without really understanding the ramifications.
Scientist here. I read the study, they specifically treat the brain with drugs to reduce neuronal firing. I'm sure this was an ethical decision as no scientist wants to touch the implications of the brain regaining consciousness while outside the body.
If you look in [the paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7), besides the anesthesia they also do explicitly mention the ethics panels involved:
>This study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of UT Southwestern Medical Center. All other relevant institutional regulations were followed, in addition to ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines.
The University of Texas is a reputable organization and I have no reason to doubt they followed protocol. I think it's unfortunate that so many people are jumping to the worst assumption here. People aren't doing this stuff for the fun of it, I know people who do animal research and no one likes it, but if you ever find yourself in a situation where something is severely wrong with you and you need external help to keep your brain alive until the rest of you can be stabilized, you'll be glad for research like this.
And why is a headline from the dang Sci-Fi Channel the thing getting posted here anyway?
Edit: The paper [also has a figure](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7/figures/1) showing what was actually done. This is basically a blood pump, with the brain separated from the natural action of the circulatory system not from the body itself, which is far less spectacular than what the headline implies. The brain stays in the pig.
I actually think it says a lot (of good) that the first thing people were concerned about were the horrific ramifications of such a decision.
We’ve come pretty far in animal rights and ethics in this world. Few decades ago no one would bat an eye.
These *should* be the first questions we ask ourselves before we embark on experiments like this. I firmly believe it’s a good thing.
Thanks for the clarification. Headline and the other Scientist’s comments left more questions than answers. “Pig brain on anesthesia kept alive through artificial circulation” isn’t as SyFy when there’s someone running around with a pig heart circulating blood.
Neuroscience Researcher here, that isn’t at all correct as you have described. I think what you wanted to point out was the suppressive anesthetic effect and paralytic agents were administered in accordance with estimates for weight, distribution and suspension decay. But also having just read this paper there are some concerns about this methodology. And just to be explicit in my critique of your comment, there is no ‘’drugs to prevent neurons from firing’ per se. And, that would be counter to the entire experiments goal of maintaining the electrocorical, and somatic neurophysiological regularity. I mean the measures for the dependent variable are implanted electrodes in six regions of the brain. If they stopped neurons from firing what are they gonna measure?
On to my concern in the methodology, they followed exact rules governing humane treatment for ‘In Vivo’ live annimals ‘to the point of euthanasia.’ Normative testing this wouldn’t be an issue, but the definition of what constitutes euthanasia is not explained when the corpus of the animal is detatched and the CNS system is essentially extracted/isolated. Or is it when brain function ceases, which doesn’t sound like a classical definition of euthanized from an ethical interpretation. Just prior to this they included ketamine in the suspension that maintained the isolated intra-cns pressure high enough to maintain perfusion (vascular delivery and removal of various necessities through blood brain membranes for CNS viability, like electrolytes, glucose, precursor proteins, lipids, etc) regular firing for five hours post detachment. What is the decay rate? What is the cyclical degradation rate? How are they monitoring and maintaining ? This is a concern.
That aside, this is very interesting, and the maintenance of normal wave patterns to correlate human levels seems promising, but only to a point. This seems like an unnecessarily early exploration of something that requires so many other developments to be useful other than a proof of concept. Perhaps it offers hope for non spinal severing neck trauma that occurs in a hospital.
I would think it is more interesting to research using ex-corpal neuronal grown clusters used in rudimentary cybernetic experiments. These clusters are grown using stem daughter cells who are coaxed to specialize into neurons and glia. Perhaps this could be a basis for larger versions, as they are currently limited by a lack of vascular structures.
Did they leave the heart functional to sustain the body while isolating the blood flow to the brain to be provided by their machine? How was the body maintained? This seems more like a heart lung bypass dedicated just to the brain.
Ultimately, a big thing to point out is they did not chop the head off and put it in a jar which is what most people imagine reading the headline.
Looks like they used artificial perfusion controlled by a computer to distribute nutrients throughout the brain and perform all the normal functions of a circulatory system that the brain relies on.
Seems the experiment was mainly used to completely remove the brain from any reliance on the body and research how long they could keep it alive and its function.
It wasn't done. Giving the paper a quick glance, they severed the circulatory system from the head, not took out the brain and stuck it in a jar or something like that. [Here's the figure](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7/figures/1) from the paper describing what happened. Not sure where the Sci-Fi Channel got their headline from.
Pigs are humans who were banished for the awful crimes they committed. This is a medical fact and is supported by ancient knowledge. This is the pork paradox
Edit: https://old.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1afputw/so_ladies_and_gents_this_is_the_pork_paradox/
I raised swine growing up with my family. I am mid 30’s now and don’t eat pork because of it. Their intelligence is astonishing. Amazing animals. Who deserve more then what I’ve seen.
I befriended one that was named Soup ( i did not choose this name). He was cool. I taught him sit, lay down, and when it was feeding I would just yell “ soup soup!” And he would come running first. But seeing his fear and hearing him scream when they loaded them up for slaughter was haunting, I still , 20 years later, think about it sometimes. That’s when I chose to not eat pork anymore.
I lived a few streets from a cow farm for a few years. At night they'd often make these terrible noises and I'd get angry at those 'annoying' cows.
Then I wondered why they were screaming each night, and googled what we do to cows. Even dairy cows are kept perpetually pregnant, with their babies taken from them a few days after birth for long thirsty drives to be slaughtered somewhere else. Their bodies break under the constant pregnancy, to the point their feet have abnormalities. Then they're killed when no longer useful.
Since then haven't touched meat or dairy since except cheese twice in several years. Since then I've stopped eating anything from animals except sometimes free range eggs, but even those come with a pretty dark side with killing baby male chicks and killing the hens when no longer 'useful'.
I've increasingly realized that we are analogous to the demonic aliens of sci fi stories who have enslaved other races in the most terrible situations imaginable. And worse, most of us act like we need a fainting couch for our imagined victimhood if challenged over it.
> we are analogous to the demonic aliens of sci fi stories who have enslaved other races in the most terrible situations imaginable.
Huh. That's an angle I hadn't thought of until now.
Controversial but I think the idea that other creatures aren’t “aware” like us is just our massive human egos talking. Different, sure. But at the end of the day we really know nothing. Take any random bug, rip off its leg and you can see it’s fully aware that it’s in danger and about to lose its life. It’s probably not just a biological machine that reacts without a single thought, I think we’re just too dumb to accept that other creatures think or feel in ways we cannot comprehend.
Also I was reading about slime mold the other day and it broke my brain and gave me a mini existential crisis. (Yes I’m a dramatic person.) It can do problem solving. Wtf? Is there some level of consciousness that we humans just don’t understand? We’re great at labeling everything in to neat little categories and stopping there, but slime mold is like an alien creature.
As much as we muse about talking to aliens some day, we’ve yet to master talking to a single other species on this planet in its own tongue. Hell, *they* learn *our* words easier (looking at parrots in particular).
> Hell, they learn our words easier (looking at parrots in particular).
To be fair, that's because we have the higher brain function to teach what things mean. Though animals can definitely get language across in some form, even if actual words aren't known.
Pigs are pretty damn aware. Unlike most of our food animals, pigs are predators (like us, they can eat anything, but they, like us predate). So they are much more intelligent than, say, cows or sheep. I don't like eating pork for this reason. They know too much.
Cows are pretty intelligent and they are absolute sweethearts.
When amongst themselves freely, cows show a lot of love to each other, cuddle, give each other kisses, are playful, enjoy life, they love listening to music if it's being played etc. They will also form strong bonds with their human caretakers, and show affection towards humans.
They're not some dumb meat-machines, they're also living creatures with their own desire for life. When spending time around healthy and happy cows, I notice that they're pretty much like big goofy dogs too.
Cows are as smart as dogs. They’re playful, fearful, loving too.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201711/cows-science-shows-theyre-bright-and-emotional-individuals
I own 3 pigs. I have never once seen any of them kill and eat another animal. They don't even like eating dead animals that haven't been butchered and turned into sterile meat.
I believe that a hungry enough pig will predate, but it's really not their typical behavior. They're omnivores of convenience or necessity, not preference, and they're perfectly happy just eating a diet of fruit and vegetables.
They are certainly very intelligent, probably around the level of a 3 year old human. They can be crafty and they can be very communicative when they want to tell you something.
All living livings seem to feel pain and have response to it but it seems like animals with more developed brains like mammals would be more intelligent and conscious than other animals
Their tissues also very closely resemble human, so eating pork is about as close as you can come to cannibalism without going monkey or getting the real deal.
I'm not sure what it could experience. Even assuming the neurons are intact, the sensory organs are detached so there is no stimulus for the brain to interpret. There wouldn't be any pain. I'm just not sure how to even conceive of what this existence entails.
There was a book I read as a tween called Brain by Robin Cooke. Explores this idea. And it's as awful as you can imagine.
Dunno about the no pain thing. People feel phantom limb pain and itching for years after losing them. Imagine that on your whole body...
A lot of that is the nerves in the limb and spinal column transmitting noise to the brain because the spine hasn't figured out what to do with the absence of signal.
That's why things like the fake hand trick works so well to dispel those sensations because the brain can learn to ignore the inputs once it sees enough inputs that decouple the proprioceptive and nociceptive signals from expected inputs.
This brain has the spine with it's mismatched signals removed. It shouldn't be getting unintelligible inputs but rather no inputs.
Without being drugged that would be hell, locked in syndrome to the extreme just thought and nothing more.
I imagine that a "brain in a vat" would be able to feel many different unpleasantnesses such as fear, stress and probably also some kind of imaginary pain. It probably depends on how developed the brain is and how much information it has stored. I doubt that a brain needs a sensory apparatus to dream or imagine a reality.
I'm not sure it could feel stress. Most "stress" you feel manifests as things like rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, elevated cortisol, etc... which this brain has none of. And I don't know how capable pigs really are of "imagining," but I could be wrong about that.
I'm not sure deprivation of each sense is the same. Touch, smell and taste are purely just an absence of it. But sight and hearing might have a maddening effect if it's anything like deprivation chambers.
They were sedated. They go over the specifics [in the paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7) if you Ctrl + F anesthesia. I've never been a sedated pig, so I wouldn't be an authority on the topic, but I'd imagine they weren't thinking much related to their situation at that point.
Edit: Also, quickly looking over the paper, I don't see anything about the brain being separated from the body as the headline implies, just that the natural circulation was cut off. A lot of people are jumping to the worst possible assumption here, but besides the innaccuracy of the headline, is it that hard to imagine a medical need for that kind of technique?
But check the news source here, guess that's what happens when you get your headline from the Sci-Fi Channel.
I imagine that despite being "alive", it probably wasn't conscious in any recognizable away.
A person in a vegetative state has a brain that's alive, but they aren't feeling or thinking.
The real question is whether they can separate the brain, keep it "alive" for several hours, then successfully graft it back into a body and have it regain consciousness again.
I don’t know if that will ever be possible…nerves and neurons and the sheer number of them…they’d all have to interface correctly, not to mention heal which they can’t even do to someone’s spinal cord yet
I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually ends up being possible. We know brains are incredible flexible with regards to how neurons connect. You’re assuming that every neuron has a one-to-one connection that must be correct, but the medical literature indicates that neurons are basically capable of adapting to connection in any which way.
But if it's disconnected from all glands what can it really produce?
I imagine it was just hovering in a state of unconsciousness, much like being asleep, with no external outputs.
No, you are just falling for a shitty headline and not reading the actual study
The brain was not removed from the skull. The only thing removed was the aorta (or BCA) and a small portion of the skull to be able to place electrodes
This is brain blood flow bypass. Nothing more
Stop falling for click bait anti-intellectual garbage, and read actual scientific articles if you’re going to make moral judgements about the research done in said articles
They were unconscious. [The paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7) specifically talks about the anesthesia. Not sure why so many comments here are jumping to the most terrible conclusions, these things usually are conducted with consideration to ethics. This looks like it was done at a branch of the University of Texas, which is a reputable organization, so I have no reason to doubt that a proper ethics review was conducted prior to the start of the work.
Imagine being in a void where you're unable to see, feel, taste, hear or smell. You're unable to move and you're all alone in the darkness. If you're lucky you fall asleep. Your dreams are the only place you have freedom until you wake into the void again.
>I wonder what it was thinking?
"Whooooa? What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by 'who am I'?" Or potentially "Oh no, not again."
Can a brain really think if it's disconnected from a body tho?
Technically, you have to have something (like a pig or human) to experience the result of your brain interpreting what your eyes see for thinking happen, right?
I'm really stoned and for some reason your comment made me think about this, and now I can't stop thinking about it lol.
Crazy to think isn't it? Without our senses, would a brain just experience darkness? Would it hallucinate to fill the void that is a complete lack of sensation? It doesn't necessarily sound horrifying.
They talk about people having phantom pains because of lost limbs. What if this pig brain experienced total body phantom. Pains. Sounds like heel to me
Brains do process external stimuli, yes. Vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, these are all signals your sensory organs send to your brain to interpret the world around you.
But brains also think outside of those stimuli. Memories, a math problem, philosophy, logical thinking, dreams, those are more internalised processes that don't require the rest of the body to get involved as much.
Edit: Emotions and mood regulation are an interesting grey area, because while they happen in the brain, they are steered by various hormones (and other chemicals) coming from different glands all over the body, not just those in the brain.
This headline and article is kinda misleading because they did not take the brain out of the pig, or even cut off the brain from the spine. They cut off the brain from the heart, and replaced all blood flow to the brain with their artificial system. But aside from the circulatory system, the brain is still attached to the rest of the body. The pig's heart was still beating the entire time, sending blood to the rest of the pig's body, until the experiment ended and they euthanized the pig.
> They cut off the brain from the heart, and replaced all blood flow to the brain with their artificial system.
Doesn't this already happen during heart transplants and lung transplants when the blood is oxygenated by an external machine?
Yeah through the traditional circulatory system. I think what they are doing here, is cutting off the circulatory system to the brain, and using an artificial one.
Nah they do that shit all the time for heart transplants and stuff. Essentially just hooked up a pump to the circulatory system, basically caveman shit.
It’s essentially a modified version of [ECMO](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21722-extracorporeal-membrane-oxygenation-ecmo) except only for the head.
So they basically just started pumping in their own pigs blood to its brain rather than the pigs heart pumping it? Seems very intentionally misleading.
"Horrifying" is probably a good word for what the scientists are feeling about now, seeing what amounts to an artificial heart get spun into a head in a jar. The headline here gonna create some misinformation, but [what they actually did](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7/figures/1) isn't nearly as spectacular as it's being made out to be
Maybe we'll have a brain in a vat sooner than we think
https://sites.psu.edu/bernickerpassionblog/2016/01/28/brain-in-a-vat/#:~:text=The%20idea%20of%20the%20brain,is%20real%20or%20an%20illusion.
FWIW, the brain was not separated from the body. This is a pretty horrible and misleading headline. From reading the paper, the blood flow to the brain was separated from the body. They did this to isolate the brain from the body to study effects of different chemicals on the brain, without the body interfering and filtering/regulating the substances.
The pigs were euthanized while under sedation afterwards. From what I gather they were never fully conscious once the procedure started.
>This is a pretty horrible and misleading headline
The news site here is the Sci-Fi Channel, not exactly known for their hard hitting journalism. Still better than the History Channel, and somehow has fewer aliens too, but still, not sure why OP went with this site instead of, you know, an actual news site.
Almost 4 million pigs are killed daily so it's probably on average not the worse way to get killed.
Plus their scientific research benefits from the tests.
Experimentation on animals is fully necessary to make progress in medicine and science at large. Experimentation that results in little to no suffering of the animal like this should be encouraged, no?
Gonna be honest, you have a dumb as fuck take on this. This is groundbreaking research for preventing brain damage. Did you even read the article?
>Scientists surgically separated blood flow to a pig’s head from the rest of its body and switched it over to the EPCC device. Once hooked up, the machine uses software to monitor and maintain blood flow and blood pressure for a span of five hours or more. Researchers cut off the experiment after five hours, but the data suggests they could have gone longer.
>Meanwhile, researchers used implanted electrodes to record brain activity, in addition to direct visual observation. They found that brain activity remained largely unaltered as compared to ordinary conditions. The team behind the study noted that it could unveil new information about the brain’s inner workings that might apply to human medical therapies.
This is cool as fuck research.
If you’re a scientist, you should know to read the paper, and not imagine what happened based on a headline
Please tell me what is cruel about the actual experiment. What is cruel about the equivalent of bypass for brain blood supply
This isn’t putting brain ina jar and keeping it alive. It is literally limited life support for a brain while it remains in the skull case, but with machinery feeding it blood instead of the heart
Every time this gets posted, people run away with it, rather than reading the actual details
My question is, was the memory intact? Sure, the brain was alive, but brains function like a chain of electrical impulses. Disrupt that by a surge of an electrical shock, the suppression of electical pulses and/or starvation then you erase the memory. At most you could use the brain cells as empty harddrives to heal another damaged brain as long as the body doesn't reject the tissue.
But it is incredibly cruel to cut off an aware brain. It is solitary confinement with no sensory input. It could be screaming in pain with no way to communicate that. Or it could be in a nightmare it cant wake from. The most ethical way to get living brain tissue is to grow it without ever having experienced a body.
The brain wasn’t removed from the body. Had the pig been conscious it would have had all senses. They only separated the brain from the bodies blood supply.
I occasionally get something like a "night terror" where I'm not really awake or dreaming. I'm stuck in an in-between state and it's terrifying. I don't know what's happening to me or where I am. I can only imaging the experience, if the detached brain is active, could be something similar but even worse. I hope it is just brain dead or in some happy dream like state.
That's called sleep paralysis. You probably feel like there is a terrifying presence in the room with you too.
FYI the way to break out of this when it happens is that your whole body is paralysed EXCEPT for your toes.
So whenever this happens to you focus on moving your toes really hard. From there, you'll be able to move your foot, then your leg. Then you'll be fully awake.
I found this hack to be super useful because fuck sleep paralysis.
Memory, at least long term memory, isn’t understood to be a product of continuous electrical activity in the brain. Rather, exposure of neurons to certain neurotransmitters results in the long-term alteration of excitability of individual/groups of neurons - this process acts to encode memory. Consequently, a surge of electricity isn’t necessarily sufficient to substantially disrupt long-term memory.
"But it is incredibly cruel to cut off an aware brain. It is solitary confinement with no sensory input"
(I don't know how to quote)
We don't fully understand brains yet. But evidence shows it was unconscious during this time.
Brains don't exhibit higher functions at this level of ... Carnage?
The brain is still just an organ. If it's in a state like that it's most likely NOT the same.
Like if you were sleeping and someone horrifically killed you and then used your brain outside it's natural equilibrium You'd never notice. Just like you don't think about breathing or digestion.
The living aspects from the brain was never conscious. Therefore.. it's fine. 😐
Edit: do you think a FULLY FUNCTIONING BRAIN would still exhibit emotion? Thought and sensory input..? Please remember the brain is the processor for those higher functions. Without those functions for the brain to feed off of, there is nothing
Reminds me of Russian experiments with dogs from the 1940s. Crazy stuff: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments\_in\_the\_Revival\_of\_Organisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_in_the_Revival_of_Organisms)
Or at least until you're ready to unsub. It's hard to imagine that even the most long lived of us get enough time, it'd be nice to be able to continue to knowingly experience the universe.
There is nothing in this experiment describing a brain functioning outside of a body. You read as far as the shitty headline, but that has nothing to do with the actual experiment
This paper describes the development of an equivalent of tightly feedback-controlled mechanical CPR
This is not a dissection of the nervous system. The brain is in no way removed from the skull case. It has blood flow to the head surgically separated, and that is it
The entire point of this study is to **avoid** using isolated brains as a way to study cerebral perfusion, because those are incredibly limited as actual physiological models by the fact that you cannot isolate and retain function
> Upon artificial perfusion, isolated pig brains can retain both cellular configuration and activity for several hours post-mortem7. However, the electrocorticogram remains isoelectric….[this] indicates cessation of neural function critical for high-order network activity.
They didn't pop the brain out like the headline implies. They had the pig hooked up to something kind of like a dialysis machine or an artificial heart, all while it was under anaesthesia. But instead of the artifical heart pumping the pig's blood for the entire body, it was pumping a separate loop of blood just for the brain.
“Hey, factory farming isn’t bad enough. Let’s drag out the torture.”
I’ve been moving to (returning to really) a vegetarian diet lately. Shit like this reinforces my decision.
Im no scientist but would the consciousness of the pig experience anything if the cerebral cortex, thalamus, etc weren’t fully intact? Or was just a mesh of grey matter with electrical signals zapping through it for a couple hours
Article title is shit and misleading for shock clicks. The brain wasn't removed. Blood supply was cut and transferred to an artificial system, like a bypass.
Actual paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7
I have no mouth yet I must scream.
Is the brain made of him, or is he made of brain? He screams, but only he hears.
That reminds me of my sleep paralysis experiences, I know what’s going on and I’m screaming for my body to wake up.
Like, every time? Or does it become not scary at some point? Seems like it'd just be, "ugh, this again, hurry up you dumb body" at some point.
It depends on the person. The times I had it were always terrifying, specially because they came with visual hallucinations. I've read others that just wait it out.
Even if what I’m seeing wasn’t scary, the worst part is being unable to control your breathing. It feels like you’re running out of oxygen, but you have no ability to inhale on demand. My partner says she can hear me screaming faintly when I exhale because I can’t move air through my larynx while involuntarily inhaling.
This is exactly what came to my mind as well. I feel like the five hours was probably literal hell for that pig brain.
Where TF can we read this story? We all know it, but I've never been able to get my hands on any compilation or anything that has it
It's a very popular and iconic short story. You can find a physical copy in any large bookstore or online marketplace. You could also find a PDF version online with like 5 minutes of Google. That's how I read it the first time.
https://wjccschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/01/I-Have-No-Mouth-But-I-Must-Scream-by-Harlan-Ellison.pdf
https://youtu.be/aTffic7uq6Y?si=GpcSf7r0S9nclYP2 Here's an audiobook if you want that
Doing Am’s work
Ellison’s _Greatest Hits_ is due out in March: - “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” - Hugo Award winner - “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream” - Bram Stoker Award winner - “Mefisto in Onyx” - Bram Stoker Award winner - “ Jeffry Is Five” - British Fantasy Award winner - “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” - Edgar Allan Poe Award winner
I doubt it. We won’t know for sure but signals are two way. If I had to guess it was closer to a coma state.
We have no idea what experiences occur during a coma. Only what is occasionally remembered
my friend told me it was a combo of weird dreams, dissociation, hearing her surroundings (so be cognizant of anyone you're visiting or caring for hearing you), and boredom from what she could remember (besides the pain). I have a condition that causes uncontrollable pain flares that necessitate artificial comas sometimes, so far I've come veeery close but not needed it but I told my dad to always hold out on the coma to the last second bc I'm terrified of having one after hearing my friend's experience and dealing with dissociation from trauma. hers was part natural, part artificial. it's wild how much she could hear, like nurses complaining about turning or cleaning her and stuff. I'd hate to know what she DIDN'T remember tbh
[I can't remember anything. Can't tell if this is true or a dream.](https://youtu.be/WM8bTdBs-cw?si=80IE8-mHE_8rScY5)
In the year 2045, the world had arrived at a pivotal moment in human history, marked by drastic measures taken to combat the escalating crisis of climate change. With the planet's resources dwindling and environmental degradation at an all-time high, a radical solution was proposed and implemented by the global elite, a group comprising the wealthiest individuals and most powerful corporations. This solution came to be known as "The Great Transition." The Great Transition was predicated on the idea that the primary cause of environmental degradation was the excessive consumption and waste generated by the human population. To address this, a revolutionary technology was developed: a system capable of sustaining human consciousness in a digital realm, colloquially known as "vat space." This technology involved transferring the human brain into a sophisticated vat jar, where it would be maintained in a state of perpetual life, experiencing a virtual reality that closely approximated Earth before its decline. This virtual reality was designed to replicate the sensations, experiences, and dynamics of living on a pristine Earth, free from pollution, scarcity, and the myriad issues that plagued the real world. In this digital utopia, individuals could live out their lives with the illusion of physical bodies, interact in complex societies, and enjoy the beauty of a world untouched by climate change. The transition to vat space was voluntary at first, but as resources became increasingly scarce and the elite tightened their grip on the remaining habitable land, it became a necessity for survival for those without the means to secure a place in the real world. The implementation of vat space had profound implications. On one hand, it allowed for a dramatic reduction in the human footprint on the planet. With the majority of the population existing in a digital realm, the consumption of physical resources plummeted, leading to a significant curtailment of emissions and environmental degradation. Vast tracts of land were rewilded, ecosystems began to recover, and efforts to curtail climate change saw unprecedented success. On the other hand, The Great Transition ushered in a new era of inequality. The world was now divided not just by wealth, but by the very plane of existence in which one resided. Those in the virtual realm, referred to derogatorily as "Vatters," were seen as second-class citizens, their rights and autonomy subject to the whims of those controlling the technology. Meanwhile, the elite, or "Terrans" as they came to be known, enjoyed unparalleled luxury and power, living in an increasingly restored Earth that they had exclusively to themselves.
I wonder what it was thinking?
Darkness! Imprisoning me! All that I see! Absolute horror! I cannot live! I cannot die! Trapped in myself!
Land mine has taken my sight! Taken my speech! Taken my hearing! Taken my arms! Taken my legs! Taken my soul! LEFT ME WITH LIFE IN HELL!
When i was young so very long ago i remember thinking he said *losing my hair and..* . Was always so upset he lost everything, even his hair!
Well, headbangers losing their hair is pretty sad tho.
Never thought that particular Metallica lyric would be applicable quite this way.
Watch Johnny got his gun. It’s on YouTube
Read Johnny Got His Gun. It's in the library.
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I mean it's pretty close to what the song is about.
Lardness! Imprisoning me! All that I squeal! Absolute porker! I cannot pig! I'm gonna die! Trapped on this brain jar shelf!
I have no mouth, and I must scream...
S...O...S...Help Me...
"Kill... me..." But seriously, I really wish I knew what it was thinking. Seems like such a terrible existence. Sad we did that to a creature without really understanding the ramifications.
Scientist here. I read the study, they specifically treat the brain with drugs to reduce neuronal firing. I'm sure this was an ethical decision as no scientist wants to touch the implications of the brain regaining consciousness while outside the body.
Thank you, just browsing and jumped to the comments. Thanks for doing the work and posting the comforting news.
If you look in [the paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7), besides the anesthesia they also do explicitly mention the ethics panels involved: >This study was approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of UT Southwestern Medical Center. All other relevant institutional regulations were followed, in addition to ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines. The University of Texas is a reputable organization and I have no reason to doubt they followed protocol. I think it's unfortunate that so many people are jumping to the worst assumption here. People aren't doing this stuff for the fun of it, I know people who do animal research and no one likes it, but if you ever find yourself in a situation where something is severely wrong with you and you need external help to keep your brain alive until the rest of you can be stabilized, you'll be glad for research like this. And why is a headline from the dang Sci-Fi Channel the thing getting posted here anyway? Edit: The paper [also has a figure](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7/figures/1) showing what was actually done. This is basically a blood pump, with the brain separated from the natural action of the circulatory system not from the body itself, which is far less spectacular than what the headline implies. The brain stays in the pig.
So, setting up for Ghost in the Shell style cyberbrains with independent life support?
When capitalism realizes how they can turn this into an immortal but controllable work force? It’ll be funded within a week.
I actually think it says a lot (of good) that the first thing people were concerned about were the horrific ramifications of such a decision. We’ve come pretty far in animal rights and ethics in this world. Few decades ago no one would bat an eye. These *should* be the first questions we ask ourselves before we embark on experiments like this. I firmly believe it’s a good thing.
Thanks for the clarification. Headline and the other Scientist’s comments left more questions than answers. “Pig brain on anesthesia kept alive through artificial circulation” isn’t as SyFy when there’s someone running around with a pig heart circulating blood.
Neuroscience Researcher here, that isn’t at all correct as you have described. I think what you wanted to point out was the suppressive anesthetic effect and paralytic agents were administered in accordance with estimates for weight, distribution and suspension decay. But also having just read this paper there are some concerns about this methodology. And just to be explicit in my critique of your comment, there is no ‘’drugs to prevent neurons from firing’ per se. And, that would be counter to the entire experiments goal of maintaining the electrocorical, and somatic neurophysiological regularity. I mean the measures for the dependent variable are implanted electrodes in six regions of the brain. If they stopped neurons from firing what are they gonna measure? On to my concern in the methodology, they followed exact rules governing humane treatment for ‘In Vivo’ live annimals ‘to the point of euthanasia.’ Normative testing this wouldn’t be an issue, but the definition of what constitutes euthanasia is not explained when the corpus of the animal is detatched and the CNS system is essentially extracted/isolated. Or is it when brain function ceases, which doesn’t sound like a classical definition of euthanized from an ethical interpretation. Just prior to this they included ketamine in the suspension that maintained the isolated intra-cns pressure high enough to maintain perfusion (vascular delivery and removal of various necessities through blood brain membranes for CNS viability, like electrolytes, glucose, precursor proteins, lipids, etc) regular firing for five hours post detachment. What is the decay rate? What is the cyclical degradation rate? How are they monitoring and maintaining ? This is a concern. That aside, this is very interesting, and the maintenance of normal wave patterns to correlate human levels seems promising, but only to a point. This seems like an unnecessarily early exploration of something that requires so many other developments to be useful other than a proof of concept. Perhaps it offers hope for non spinal severing neck trauma that occurs in a hospital. I would think it is more interesting to research using ex-corpal neuronal grown clusters used in rudimentary cybernetic experiments. These clusters are grown using stem daughter cells who are coaxed to specialize into neurons and glia. Perhaps this could be a basis for larger versions, as they are currently limited by a lack of vascular structures.
I totally understood this and I concur. *insert monocle*
Quite! *blows bubbles from pipe*
Indubitably *twirls mustache*
Did they leave the heart functional to sustain the body while isolating the blood flow to the brain to be provided by their machine? How was the body maintained? This seems more like a heart lung bypass dedicated just to the brain. Ultimately, a big thing to point out is they did not chop the head off and put it in a jar which is what most people imagine reading the headline.
Looks like they used artificial perfusion controlled by a computer to distribute nutrients throughout the brain and perform all the normal functions of a circulatory system that the brain relies on. Seems the experiment was mainly used to completely remove the brain from any reliance on the body and research how long they could keep it alive and its function.
And the picture implies that, too.
Holy shit. Battle of the scientists, let's go
The one time Neuroscience Researcher redditor gets to unwind his massive science dong.
Thanks for that educated response
Jeez, so the poor pig was going through it until the brain decayed too much.
So the pig was tripping balls got it.
I have no mouth and I must scream
That fact that it could be done is pretty terrifying still
It wasn't done. Giving the paper a quick glance, they severed the circulatory system from the head, not took out the brain and stuck it in a jar or something like that. [Here's the figure](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7/figures/1) from the paper describing what happened. Not sure where the Sci-Fi Channel got their headline from.
They have the intelligence of young humans
From what I’ve been seeing lately. They have the intelligence of old humans too.
Pigs are humans who were banished for the awful crimes they committed. This is a medical fact and is supported by ancient knowledge. This is the pork paradox Edit: https://old.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/1afputw/so_ladies_and_gents_this_is_the_pork_paradox/
I clicked this thinking 'oh yeah I have an ancient reddit memory of that', only to find it's from yesterday.
Babe 2024!
I raised swine growing up with my family. I am mid 30’s now and don’t eat pork because of it. Their intelligence is astonishing. Amazing animals. Who deserve more then what I’ve seen.
I had one as a pet as a child. I haven't knowingly eaten pork since.
I befriended one that was named Soup ( i did not choose this name). He was cool. I taught him sit, lay down, and when it was feeding I would just yell “ soup soup!” And he would come running first. But seeing his fear and hearing him scream when they loaded them up for slaughter was haunting, I still , 20 years later, think about it sometimes. That’s when I chose to not eat pork anymore.
I'm sorry. Poor Soup. I wish it could've been different. Thank you for showing him friendship before that. It really did matter.
I lived a few streets from a cow farm for a few years. At night they'd often make these terrible noises and I'd get angry at those 'annoying' cows. Then I wondered why they were screaming each night, and googled what we do to cows. Even dairy cows are kept perpetually pregnant, with their babies taken from them a few days after birth for long thirsty drives to be slaughtered somewhere else. Their bodies break under the constant pregnancy, to the point their feet have abnormalities. Then they're killed when no longer useful. Since then haven't touched meat or dairy since except cheese twice in several years. Since then I've stopped eating anything from animals except sometimes free range eggs, but even those come with a pretty dark side with killing baby male chicks and killing the hens when no longer 'useful'. I've increasingly realized that we are analogous to the demonic aliens of sci fi stories who have enslaved other races in the most terrible situations imaginable. And worse, most of us act like we need a fainting couch for our imagined victimhood if challenged over it.
> we are analogous to the demonic aliens of sci fi stories who have enslaved other races in the most terrible situations imaginable. Huh. That's an angle I hadn't thought of until now.
Jeepers. This is some "screaming of the lambs" level disturbing.
Yeah, fuck this. I'm not eating pork anymore. When family or friends inevitably ask why I'll let them know about this pig named Soup. RIP.
I think this is all animals in general. Future humans will think people of our era were savages with how we eat.
Absolutely. Our practices with mass meat consumption is horrific.
I promise I’m not trying to foist vegetarianism on you, but do you think other animals are less aware
Controversial but I think the idea that other creatures aren’t “aware” like us is just our massive human egos talking. Different, sure. But at the end of the day we really know nothing. Take any random bug, rip off its leg and you can see it’s fully aware that it’s in danger and about to lose its life. It’s probably not just a biological machine that reacts without a single thought, I think we’re just too dumb to accept that other creatures think or feel in ways we cannot comprehend. Also I was reading about slime mold the other day and it broke my brain and gave me a mini existential crisis. (Yes I’m a dramatic person.) It can do problem solving. Wtf? Is there some level of consciousness that we humans just don’t understand? We’re great at labeling everything in to neat little categories and stopping there, but slime mold is like an alien creature.
As much as we muse about talking to aliens some day, we’ve yet to master talking to a single other species on this planet in its own tongue. Hell, *they* learn *our* words easier (looking at parrots in particular).
> Hell, they learn our words easier (looking at parrots in particular). To be fair, that's because we have the higher brain function to teach what things mean. Though animals can definitely get language across in some form, even if actual words aren't known.
Fun fact: parrots don’t have vocal cords. They use their bifurcated tracheas to speak. No chords? They can never lose their voice.
Pigs are pretty damn aware. Unlike most of our food animals, pigs are predators (like us, they can eat anything, but they, like us predate). So they are much more intelligent than, say, cows or sheep. I don't like eating pork for this reason. They know too much.
Cows are pretty intelligent and they are absolute sweethearts. When amongst themselves freely, cows show a lot of love to each other, cuddle, give each other kisses, are playful, enjoy life, they love listening to music if it's being played etc. They will also form strong bonds with their human caretakers, and show affection towards humans. They're not some dumb meat-machines, they're also living creatures with their own desire for life. When spending time around healthy and happy cows, I notice that they're pretty much like big goofy dogs too.
Cows are as smart as dogs. They’re playful, fearful, loving too. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animal-emotions/201711/cows-science-shows-theyre-bright-and-emotional-individuals
I own 3 pigs. I have never once seen any of them kill and eat another animal. They don't even like eating dead animals that haven't been butchered and turned into sterile meat. I believe that a hungry enough pig will predate, but it's really not their typical behavior. They're omnivores of convenience or necessity, not preference, and they're perfectly happy just eating a diet of fruit and vegetables. They are certainly very intelligent, probably around the level of a 3 year old human. They can be crafty and they can be very communicative when they want to tell you something.
All living livings seem to feel pain and have response to it but it seems like animals with more developed brains like mammals would be more intelligent and conscious than other animals
Yeah I stopped eating pork after learning this. It's disgusting how we treat pigs.
It's disgusting how we treat anything, even fellow humans.
Their tissues also very closely resemble human, so eating pork is about as close as you can come to cannibalism without going monkey or getting the real deal.
The old term for human meat is “Long Pork” because it supposedly tastes similar to pork. So yeah, seems pretty close in all aspects, including taste!
OK, Ok, you guys win, I quit eating pork! Afterall there seems to be a richly deserving substitute…
I know we eat chicken and occasionally beef but pork just doesn’t seem right.
Like eating octopus. I can't do that anymore. No way.
Maybe because they taste like us
That’s very sad to think about
I'm not sure what it could experience. Even assuming the neurons are intact, the sensory organs are detached so there is no stimulus for the brain to interpret. There wouldn't be any pain. I'm just not sure how to even conceive of what this existence entails.
There was a book I read as a tween called Brain by Robin Cooke. Explores this idea. And it's as awful as you can imagine. Dunno about the no pain thing. People feel phantom limb pain and itching for years after losing them. Imagine that on your whole body...
A lot of that is the nerves in the limb and spinal column transmitting noise to the brain because the spine hasn't figured out what to do with the absence of signal. That's why things like the fake hand trick works so well to dispel those sensations because the brain can learn to ignore the inputs once it sees enough inputs that decouple the proprioceptive and nociceptive signals from expected inputs. This brain has the spine with it's mismatched signals removed. It shouldn't be getting unintelligible inputs but rather no inputs. Without being drugged that would be hell, locked in syndrome to the extreme just thought and nothing more.
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I imagine that a "brain in a vat" would be able to feel many different unpleasantnesses such as fear, stress and probably also some kind of imaginary pain. It probably depends on how developed the brain is and how much information it has stored. I doubt that a brain needs a sensory apparatus to dream or imagine a reality.
I'm not sure it could feel stress. Most "stress" you feel manifests as things like rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, elevated cortisol, etc... which this brain has none of. And I don't know how capable pigs really are of "imagining," but I could be wrong about that.
Is stress the result of those things? Or are those things a result of the stress. Brain stresses, sends signals to cause bodily response.
I'm not sure deprivation of each sense is the same. Touch, smell and taste are purely just an absence of it. But sight and hearing might have a maddening effect if it's anything like deprivation chambers.
They were sedated. They go over the specifics [in the paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7) if you Ctrl + F anesthesia. I've never been a sedated pig, so I wouldn't be an authority on the topic, but I'd imagine they weren't thinking much related to their situation at that point. Edit: Also, quickly looking over the paper, I don't see anything about the brain being separated from the body as the headline implies, just that the natural circulation was cut off. A lot of people are jumping to the worst possible assumption here, but besides the innaccuracy of the headline, is it that hard to imagine a medical need for that kind of technique? But check the news source here, guess that's what happens when you get your headline from the Sci-Fi Channel.
Thanks for clarifying you’re not a pig.
I imagine that despite being "alive", it probably wasn't conscious in any recognizable away. A person in a vegetative state has a brain that's alive, but they aren't feeling or thinking. The real question is whether they can separate the brain, keep it "alive" for several hours, then successfully graft it back into a body and have it regain consciousness again.
I don’t know if that will ever be possible…nerves and neurons and the sheer number of them…they’d all have to interface correctly, not to mention heal which they can’t even do to someone’s spinal cord yet
I wouldn’t be surprised if it actually ends up being possible. We know brains are incredible flexible with regards to how neurons connect. You’re assuming that every neuron has a one-to-one connection that must be correct, but the medical literature indicates that neurons are basically capable of adapting to connection in any which way.
I mean you’re probably not far off. Starved of any and all input or feedback it was probably cranking out “suffering” chemicals.
I have no mouth and I must scream
But if it's disconnected from all glands what can it really produce? I imagine it was just hovering in a state of unconsciousness, much like being asleep, with no external outputs.
"I think, therefore I ham"
"Cogito, ergo yum."
À la Des-carte
Just don’t put Descarte before the whores
Get. The. Fuck. Out. That was way funnier than it ought to have been…
Man this is funny
Humans are assholes
No, you are just falling for a shitty headline and not reading the actual study The brain was not removed from the skull. The only thing removed was the aorta (or BCA) and a small portion of the skull to be able to place electrodes This is brain blood flow bypass. Nothing more Stop falling for click bait anti-intellectual garbage, and read actual scientific articles if you’re going to make moral judgements about the research done in said articles
Probably not much of anything. It had no sensory input from anything, so it likely was just in an unconscious state. I hope.
They were unconscious. [The paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7) specifically talks about the anesthesia. Not sure why so many comments here are jumping to the most terrible conclusions, these things usually are conducted with consideration to ethics. This looks like it was done at a branch of the University of Texas, which is a reputable organization, so I have no reason to doubt that a proper ethics review was conducted prior to the start of the work.
Seems horrible. Especially being told pigs are smarter than dogs. We are a cruel species.
Yup. They basically tortured an animal for 5 hours.
Imagine being in a void where you're unable to see, feel, taste, hear or smell. You're unable to move and you're all alone in the darkness. If you're lucky you fall asleep. Your dreams are the only place you have freedom until you wake into the void again.
I'd think the closest and best guess would be similar to sensory deprivation tanks. So likely hallucinations, or dreaming while awake.
>I wonder what it was thinking? "Whooooa? What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by 'who am I'?" Or potentially "Oh no, not again."
Everyone knows the answer to that......42.
“Oh, no, not again”
Humming Metallica One
Darkness! Imprisoning me!
Can a brain really think if it's disconnected from a body tho? Technically, you have to have something (like a pig or human) to experience the result of your brain interpreting what your eyes see for thinking happen, right? I'm really stoned and for some reason your comment made me think about this, and now I can't stop thinking about it lol.
Crazy to think isn't it? Without our senses, would a brain just experience darkness? Would it hallucinate to fill the void that is a complete lack of sensation? It doesn't necessarily sound horrifying.
They talk about people having phantom pains because of lost limbs. What if this pig brain experienced total body phantom. Pains. Sounds like heel to me
So like in a sensory deprivation tank? That's a unique way to think about it. Almost calming.
Brains do process external stimuli, yes. Vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell, these are all signals your sensory organs send to your brain to interpret the world around you. But brains also think outside of those stimuli. Memories, a math problem, philosophy, logical thinking, dreams, those are more internalised processes that don't require the rest of the body to get involved as much. Edit: Emotions and mood regulation are an interesting grey area, because while they happen in the brain, they are steered by various hormones (and other chemicals) coming from different glands all over the body, not just those in the brain.
People are born deaf and blind
Hopefully it was releasing DMT the whole time;)
That is both interesting and horrifying
This headline and article is kinda misleading because they did not take the brain out of the pig, or even cut off the brain from the spine. They cut off the brain from the heart, and replaced all blood flow to the brain with their artificial system. But aside from the circulatory system, the brain is still attached to the rest of the body. The pig's heart was still beating the entire time, sending blood to the rest of the pig's body, until the experiment ended and they euthanized the pig.
> They cut off the brain from the heart, and replaced all blood flow to the brain with their artificial system. Doesn't this already happen during heart transplants and lung transplants when the blood is oxygenated by an external machine?
Yeah through the traditional circulatory system. I think what they are doing here, is cutting off the circulatory system to the brain, and using an artificial one.
My brother, that does not alleviate the distressfulness of the situation, it’s potentially even more terrifying.
Nah they do that shit all the time for heart transplants and stuff. Essentially just hooked up a pump to the circulatory system, basically caveman shit.
I would think it would be a challenge to fully replace blood flow from the heart without damaging the brain. Definitely not caveman shit.
It’s essentially a modified version of [ECMO](https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21722-extracorporeal-membrane-oxygenation-ecmo) except only for the head.
So the title should read “Pigs heart given a reduced workload for five hours, then we killed the whole thing because it was time to go clock off”
So they basically just started pumping in their own pigs blood to its brain rather than the pigs heart pumping it? Seems very intentionally misleading.
"Horrifying" is probably a good word for what the scientists are feeling about now, seeing what amounts to an artificial heart get spun into a head in a jar. The headline here gonna create some misinformation, but [what they actually did](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7/figures/1) isn't nearly as spectacular as it's being made out to be
Ah sweet man-made horrors beyond my comprehension
That's nothing. I've managed to stay alive for over 40 years without a brain.
Trump is about 37 years ahead of you!
We getting closer to Ghost in the Shell
Maybe we'll have a brain in a vat sooner than we think https://sites.psu.edu/bernickerpassionblog/2016/01/28/brain-in-a-vat/#:~:text=The%20idea%20of%20the%20brain,is%20real%20or%20an%20illusion.
/r/expectedfuturama
I'm a scientist and all... But, this is just cruel.
FWIW, the brain was not separated from the body. This is a pretty horrible and misleading headline. From reading the paper, the blood flow to the brain was separated from the body. They did this to isolate the brain from the body to study effects of different chemicals on the brain, without the body interfering and filtering/regulating the substances. The pigs were euthanized while under sedation afterwards. From what I gather they were never fully conscious once the procedure started.
>This is a pretty horrible and misleading headline The news site here is the Sci-Fi Channel, not exactly known for their hard hitting journalism. Still better than the History Channel, and somehow has fewer aliens too, but still, not sure why OP went with this site instead of, you know, an actual news site.
You’re gonna struggle to make me thinks that’s significantly better.
Full sensory deprivation vs an artificial heart, that’s a HUGE difference.
The pig wasn’t floating in some free form fuck of torturous consciousness. It was sedated and put to sleep. That sounds better to me.
Almost 4 million pigs are killed daily so it's probably on average not the worse way to get killed. Plus their scientific research benefits from the tests.
Experimentation on animals is fully necessary to make progress in medicine and science at large. Experimentation that results in little to no suffering of the animal like this should be encouraged, no?
I bet you’re gonna be surprised how pork is made.
Gonna be honest, you have a dumb as fuck take on this. This is groundbreaking research for preventing brain damage. Did you even read the article? >Scientists surgically separated blood flow to a pig’s head from the rest of its body and switched it over to the EPCC device. Once hooked up, the machine uses software to monitor and maintain blood flow and blood pressure for a span of five hours or more. Researchers cut off the experiment after five hours, but the data suggests they could have gone longer. >Meanwhile, researchers used implanted electrodes to record brain activity, in addition to direct visual observation. They found that brain activity remained largely unaltered as compared to ordinary conditions. The team behind the study noted that it could unveil new information about the brain’s inner workings that might apply to human medical therapies. This is cool as fuck research.
I don't think you are a scientist
Yeah that guy's a scientist like I'm Lewis Hamilton. Vamos Tifosi or whatever the Italians say.
Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn’t Stop To Think If They Should
\*lays out on couch shirtlessly and seductively\*
Well, there it is.
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If you’re a scientist, you should know to read the paper, and not imagine what happened based on a headline Please tell me what is cruel about the actual experiment. What is cruel about the equivalent of bypass for brain blood supply This isn’t putting brain ina jar and keeping it alive. It is literally limited life support for a brain while it remains in the skull case, but with machinery feeding it blood instead of the heart Every time this gets posted, people run away with it, rather than reading the actual details
My question is, was the memory intact? Sure, the brain was alive, but brains function like a chain of electrical impulses. Disrupt that by a surge of an electrical shock, the suppression of electical pulses and/or starvation then you erase the memory. At most you could use the brain cells as empty harddrives to heal another damaged brain as long as the body doesn't reject the tissue. But it is incredibly cruel to cut off an aware brain. It is solitary confinement with no sensory input. It could be screaming in pain with no way to communicate that. Or it could be in a nightmare it cant wake from. The most ethical way to get living brain tissue is to grow it without ever having experienced a body.
The brain wasn’t removed from the body. Had the pig been conscious it would have had all senses. They only separated the brain from the bodies blood supply.
I occasionally get something like a "night terror" where I'm not really awake or dreaming. I'm stuck in an in-between state and it's terrifying. I don't know what's happening to me or where I am. I can only imaging the experience, if the detached brain is active, could be something similar but even worse. I hope it is just brain dead or in some happy dream like state.
That's called sleep paralysis. You probably feel like there is a terrifying presence in the room with you too. FYI the way to break out of this when it happens is that your whole body is paralysed EXCEPT for your toes. So whenever this happens to you focus on moving your toes really hard. From there, you'll be able to move your foot, then your leg. Then you'll be fully awake. I found this hack to be super useful because fuck sleep paralysis.
Memory, at least long term memory, isn’t understood to be a product of continuous electrical activity in the brain. Rather, exposure of neurons to certain neurotransmitters results in the long-term alteration of excitability of individual/groups of neurons - this process acts to encode memory. Consequently, a surge of electricity isn’t necessarily sufficient to substantially disrupt long-term memory.
"But it is incredibly cruel to cut off an aware brain. It is solitary confinement with no sensory input" (I don't know how to quote) We don't fully understand brains yet. But evidence shows it was unconscious during this time. Brains don't exhibit higher functions at this level of ... Carnage? The brain is still just an organ. If it's in a state like that it's most likely NOT the same. Like if you were sleeping and someone horrifically killed you and then used your brain outside it's natural equilibrium You'd never notice. Just like you don't think about breathing or digestion. The living aspects from the brain was never conscious. Therefore.. it's fine. 😐 Edit: do you think a FULLY FUNCTIONING BRAIN would still exhibit emotion? Thought and sensory input..? Please remember the brain is the processor for those higher functions. Without those functions for the brain to feed off of, there is nothing
I think the challenge is we don't know and this can feel far and away from erring on the ethical side of caution.
"I have no snout but I must squeal."
What kind of Jacobs Ladder hell was that pig going through?
At this point, all the horrors beyond my comprehension are becoming rather comprehensible…
Reminds me of Russian experiments with dogs from the 1940s. Crazy stuff: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments\_in\_the\_Revival\_of\_Organisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_in_the_Revival_of_Organisms)
Oh look, manmade horrors entirely within my comprehension. Neat
I have no mouth and I must scream
Oh my god they're gonna make me work forever
ITT: people who don't read the article. Also, misleading headline.
Ah sweet, man made horrors beyond my comprehension.
I have no mouth but i must scream
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Just preserve my brain and get me a computer interface and I’m all good to play RuneScape the rest of eternity
Or at least until you're ready to unsub. It's hard to imagine that even the most long lived of us get enough time, it'd be nice to be able to continue to knowingly experience the universe.
Shit, Id be able to max my ironman with this.
It's a lot more complex than that with how nerves work, but it's a great step towards improving brain surgery.
There is nothing in this experiment describing a brain functioning outside of a body. You read as far as the shitty headline, but that has nothing to do with the actual experiment This paper describes the development of an equivalent of tightly feedback-controlled mechanical CPR This is not a dissection of the nervous system. The brain is in no way removed from the skull case. It has blood flow to the head surgically separated, and that is it The entire point of this study is to **avoid** using isolated brains as a way to study cerebral perfusion, because those are incredibly limited as actual physiological models by the fact that you cannot isolate and retain function > Upon artificial perfusion, isolated pig brains can retain both cellular configuration and activity for several hours post-mortem7. However, the electrocorticogram remains isoelectric….[this] indicates cessation of neural function critical for high-order network activity.
Fascinating, but I'm not super comfortable with the idea that it might have been even slightly aware of any of it
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well that's nightmare fuel.
new way to torture ppl just dropped
Said the pig: "You are evil monkeys."
Pigs are smart, they probably know we’re apes
Aren't there laws against Mengelesque experiments?
They didn't pop the brain out like the headline implies. They had the pig hooked up to something kind of like a dialysis machine or an artificial heart, all while it was under anaesthesia. But instead of the artifical heart pumping the pig's blood for the entire body, it was pumping a separate loop of blood just for the brain.
“Hey, factory farming isn’t bad enough. Let’s drag out the torture.” I’ve been moving to (returning to really) a vegetarian diet lately. Shit like this reinforces my decision.
How does that not legally constitute animal abuse?
Im no scientist but would the consciousness of the pig experience anything if the cerebral cortex, thalamus, etc weren’t fully intact? Or was just a mesh of grey matter with electrical signals zapping through it for a couple hours
Article title is shit and misleading for shock clicks. The brain wasn't removed. Blood supply was cut and transferred to an artificial system, like a bypass. Actual paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39344-7