Jeff Davis wrote:
>
> Friends,
> I'm cross-posting this to the cryonet and extropians list.
>
> I've been thinking lately about brain damage. When exactly is identity
> destroyed? I mean really obliterated?
>
Jeff,
A quick note to let you know I have hard copied you letter so that my wife, who is a neurosurgeon, can give it a read a give her input.
She did a number of years of research with people who had suffered strokes and how the brain "remaps" to make up some of the loss of function, etc.
She also can give her clinical view of "brain dead" and what that means in her profession.
I do know from her talking about her work that most brain damage is caused by either lack of oxygen/blood flow, or by compression in the skull during a bleed or and event which causes swelling. Also that in most cases there is a rather large amount of cell death caused by one or more of those things taking place.
If interested I will post more after she gives it a read.
Lee