is it possible if you are brain dead for youre heart to beat without life support?

Answer 1

Since the brain controls bodily functions Iwould say no.

Answer 2

Yes. But with the support of mechanical breath.
The heart has its own nodule of nervous, that do not depends of the brain. Of course, if someone has dead the brain, the heart will stop beating if the mechanical breath is removed.

This makes possible the donation of organs, because now we consider a person is dead if the brain is dead, although the heart is still beating, with the support of mechanical breath.
If the doctors think someone with mechanical breath has dead the brain, they must do an electroencephalography.
If the electroencephalography shows the brain is dead, they must wait several hours an do another one. If the second encephalography also shows dead, as the first, the doctors consider the person is dead, and ask for the donation of organs. Then, when they remove the mechanical breath, the heart stops beating.
I must say that this rules are different in each country.

Answer 3

I believe so, and I'll tell you two facts that help prove it.

Three years ago, my best friend was killed in a motorcycle accident (she lost control of the bike, wiped out, flew out into traffic and was basically run over by a pick-up truck). She died at the scene, was revived, died once in a hospital, revived, was flown to another hospital 20 minutes (driving) away. She was put on life support. The doctors ended up finding that her spinal cord was completely severed. After all the paperwork was done, she was taken off life support the next night. It took her body almost 30 minutes to finally die.

And just this past two weeks, there was a girl at my job who was "killed" in a car accident. She drove head on with a semi, and was basically killed on impact, but her body didn't know it. She was knocked unconcious, and had serious brain swelling. After a week in the hospital, and taking her on and off the ventilator (they kept thinking she would make it), they finally pulled her off. She breathed on her own for about 2 days before they pronounced her dead. She had no brain activity, her pupils were unresponsive, but her body didn't want to accept the message that she was actually dead. They ended up pronouncing her dead, but turned around and put her back on the ventilator for a few more hours until they could harvest her organs for transplant. The bad news there...went they opened her up, they found she had terminal liver cancer (noone in her family knew) that would've shortened her life to only about 2 more years anyways.

Sorry, I'm rambling here. My point though, the heart can still work without brain activity telling it to stay alive, and without the assistance of artificial life support, however, it's not certain as to how long you could live like that. It could be only a few minutes, it could be several days.

Answer 4

It depends on the portion of the brain that's dead.

Even strokes and injury to the brain stem can deprive the upper brain of oxygen, killing off those parts, and still provide the organs with nourishment.

After my father had a massive stroke and parts of his brain were very dead, his heart beat for days.

He had a branched aorta and it took a blowout below the brain stem to finally kill him. He was already brain dead, his extremities had been cold and I knew I was supposed to remove support. I thought he would "cease", when we took him off. Nope. His brain stem tried to preserve him.

The brain stem injury can kill everything and keep the body alive. It's prehistoric, and it's hard to be objective.

If you have the chance, donate the organs, everything. I didn't, because I had people gnawing at me.

If I could do it over, I would donate the minute his neuro said he was "brain dead". Being selfish, holding back and stupid hope is my greatest regret.

Answer 5

Absolutely not possible. The heart needs something to 'tell it' to beat. The brain does that, or a life support machine will if the brain is dead or just not doing its job properly.

Answer 6

The term Brain Dead means the brain is not giving out any output, this is tested at the top of the spine for the electrical signals that indicate there is life. The heart is one of the body functions that receives its signal from the brain via the spinal colomb. no output from the brain and the heart will stop.

Answer 7

Yes, I would like to second what DH said.
I have seen it. The girl had been brain dead for a week. A suicide who dies at the scene but was revived by the ambulance.They'd kept her on life support for that week as they wanted to use her organs. It also gave her family a chance to fly up to say goodbye (which was a bonus for them). When they turned her off, her heart kept beating and she kept breathing for another 30min unaided.

She saved 4 lives with her organs!

Answer 8

If you are truly brain dead, then you need life support to keep going... however, you can also be in a vegetative state, whereby the brain is not functioning properly, but it is working enough for rest of the body keeps on going... in that state, all you need is a drip and vitamins to keep you alive, the heart etc works fine, but in respect to thinking, you are basically a vegetable.

Answer 9

Jamie Oliver seems to get through the day ok.