The most famous case of surviving decapitation is probably that of Mike. Studies in other organisms have suggested that even 48-96 hours after death, gene expression and activity is still occurring and in some cases increasing in quantity.įurther research and understanding are needed in humans to truly establish what the activity being detected after death is and how this relates to function and the conscious versus unconscious activity. The activity detected in humans in these studies is large enough to be detected by an electroencephalogram (a device measuring electrical activity in the brain). Most recently, research has shown that even after the heart stops beating there is still activity in the brain, it finishes with a final wave of activity that sweeps across the brain occurring minutes after the heart finishes beating, termed “spreading depolarisation”. Syda Productions/Shutterstock Final wave goodbye Some patients who have suffered cardiac arrest are able to describe what went on around them. Other animals’ heads can survive much longer, as is the case of a chef in China reportedly killed by a venomous snakebite 20 minutes after its head had been removed.
Movement would only be possible in tissue or structures still attached to the head, such as muscles for moving the eyes or the mouth because the nerves supplying those muscles would still be connected. Whatever oxygen remains in the blood and tissues after the fatal blow would certainly be there for use, but it wouldn’t last long. Once the blood vessels in the neck are severed, the oxygen supply is halted. The brain and all the structures it supplies need oxygen to function (the brain accounts for 20% of all oxygen used in the body). The most obvious one being how long and whether the head and its contents might survive following removal from its original body. If it were to go ahead – and that is increasingly unlikely – the transplant would push multiple boundaries of science. In recent years there has been significant interest in what has been called the world’s first potential human head transplant. But are these stories bogus or is there scientific evidence that the head can remain conscious after it has been separated from the body that sustains it? Anne Boleyn, for example, apparently tried to speak after being beheaded. There are other reports from history of severed heads that seem to have shown signs of consciousness. Onlookers claimed that Corday’s face took on an angry expression and her cheeks became flushed. When Jean-Paul Marat’s killer, Charlotte Corday, was executed by guillotine in 1793, a man named Francois le Gros allegedly lifted her head and slapped both cheeks.
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