Scientists revived a pig's brain almost an hour after it died: why it could be a breakthrough in science

Scientists have restored activity in pig brains almost an hour after blood circulation stopped. In some cases, functionality was maintained for hours thanks to unexpected discoveries by researchers in China.

This achievement is a huge breakthrough in developing ways to restore brain function after a patient's sudden cardiac arrest. This means that doctors will be able to expand the short window for successful resuscitation of patients after cardiac arrest, Science Alert writes.

Scientists achieved this result by including the patient's intact liver in the life support system, which is used to restore brain function with time.

In recent years, scientists have used pig models to test methods of limiting brain injury. Under the supervision of Dr. Xiaoshun He of Sun Yat-Sen University in China, a team of scientists turned to animal studies to try to understand the role of the liver in brain recovery from ischemia due to cardiac arrest.

Using 17 Tibetan mini-pigs raised in the lab, the team compared liver switching on loss of circulation. In one series of experiments, two groups of pigs were subjected to cerebral ischemia for 30 minutes, one of the groups was also subjected to liver ischemia and the other was not. Meanwhile, the control group was not exposed to any ischemia.

When the pigs were euthanized and their brains examined, it turned out that the control group had the least brain damage. However, the group that had not been exposed to liver ischemia showed significantly less brain damage than the group that had been exposed to ischemia.

The next step in the research was an attempt to put an intact liver on life support to revive the brain that had been completely removed from an euthanized pig. This scenario is unlikely to apply to human treatment, but it helps scientists understand in which cases resuscitation may be viable.

The main life support system included an artificial heart and lungs to help pump fluid through the brain. For one group, a pig liver was integrated into the system, known as liver-assisted brain perfusion in a normothermic machine.

The brain was initially connected to life support systems 10 minutes after the start of the life support procedure. In the system without the liver, electrical activity in the brain appeared within half an hour and then decreased over time.

The team also experimented with different delays, connecting the brain to the liver-supported system at intervals of 30 minutes, 50 minutes, 60 minutes, and 240 minutes. The longest interval, which turned out to be the most promising, was 50 minutes after blood deprivation: the brain restarted electrical activity and was maintained in this state for six hours until the experiment was completed.

In addition, to a brain that had been deprived of oxygen for 60 minutes, activity returned for only three hours before fading away, indicating a critical interval in which resuscitation can be successful with the addition of a functioning liver.

These results, according to the researchers, indicate that the liver plays an important role in the development of brain injury after cardiac arrest. The findings open up new avenues for brain injury research and hopefully can improve survival rates and recovery outcomes for patients in the future.

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