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Restore organs such as heart and brain an hour after death is possible: this is what they managed to demonstrate, in pigsresearchers from Yale University in the United States in a study published in the journal Nature. Through a technology that employs machinery similar to those used for extra-corporeal circulation and the administration of protective substances for cells, scientists have reactivated blood circulation and some functions in organs essential for life one hour after the last heartbeat. THE resultsaccording to the study authors surprisingwere kept up to six hours after the execution of the treatment. This technology could have numerous applicationssuch as expanding the availability of donors for organ transplants or the regeneration of tissues damaged by strokes or heart attacks.
Restore cells after death
With the cardiocirculatory deaththat is, when the heart stops pumping blood, the cells of the whole body begin to lack the fundamental element for their survival: oxygen. In fact, a few minutes after the last beats, due to the lack of oxygen and nutrients carried by the blood, the cells of all tissues undergo a series of biochemical reactions which cause the destruction of all organs and the death of the organism. However, recent studies have questioned whether the interruption of blood circulation causes cell death in an irreversible way: numerous researches, in fact, have shown that cells subjected to a prolonged lack of blood can be artificially harvested and kept alive, while entire damaged organs (such as heart, liver, kidneys and lungs), if properly isolated and treated with specific blood perfusion techniques, can be regenerated with some success.
The same research group that performed the new study, coordinated by Nedan Sestan, in 2019 already had restored cellular activity in the brains of pigs four hours after their deaththrough a technology developed by the team and called BrainEx, which consisted ofcontinuous blood supply And protective substances for brain tissue cells.
A new technology
The scientists’ goal was ambitious: to obtain results similar to those obtained with BrainEx, but in all organs of the body. However, reactivate the circulation blood of an entire body is not simple, due to the numerous obstacles activated by the body, such as coagulation, malfunctions of blood vessels and microcirculation and general inflammation that leads to numerous cellular dysfunctions. To overcome these barriers, the researchers thought of restore circulation adding also substances that protected cells and stimulated molecular and cellular recovery. From BrainEx, therefore, they developed OrganExa artificial perfusion system for use throughout the body in large mammalslike pigs.
The technology consists of a perfusion device similar to heart-lung machines – the devices that, during some open heart surgeries, allow to temporarily replace the functions of the heart and lungs, establishing what is called extra-corporeal circulation – and a fluid containing the animal’s blood and 13 different compounds, including especially anticoagulants, capable of promote cell health and of suppress the typical mechanisms of inflammation. In particular, death from cardiac arrest was induced in the pigs involved in the study; an hour later, some of them were treated with OrganEx, whose results have been evaluated up to six hours after treatmentwhich seems to have had surprising results.
The results
First, the blood began to flow normally throughout the body, which usually does not happen easily, due to the significant coagulation induced by cardiocirculatory death. “We were able to restore circulation throughout the body, which amazed us“, confirmed Sestan. Not only that: the organs and tissues of pigs who had received OrganEx treatment, several hours after death, appeared functional and vital. In fact, in many organs, such as in the heart, liver and kidneys, the cells they were active and some of them key functions had been restoredsuch as the electrical activity and contraction capacity of heart cells, essential for the proper functioning of the heart.
Furthermore, the researchers noted movements muscular involuntary and spontaneous in the head and neck areas of pigs, which however they did not indicate a signal from the brain, but probably the preservation of some motor functions of the spinal cord. Although, in fact, they found the restoration of cellular activity in some brain areas – as in the 2019 experiment – the researchers they did not detect any organized electrical activitywhich would indicate conscious brain activity.
The authors of the study, while emphasizing the need for further research to better understand the actual vitality of the regenerated organs and the seemingly restored motor functions, they believe that OrganEx may find different applications in the future of medicine, such as keeping organs alive immediately after cardiovascular death, which it would increase the availability of donors for organ transplantation. The system could even be used in resuscitation, helping to regenerate organs and tissues following events that lead to sudden cessation of blood circulation, such as strokes and heart attacks.
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