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By Alex Lin Alex Lin is an undergraduate student at Rutgers University pursuing a dual degree in Biological Sciences and Philosophy. As an aspiring physician, he is interested in medical ethics and runs the Rutgers Bioethics Society alongside a diverse team of student thinkers. Alex is from Paramus, New Jersey, and volunteers as an emergency medical technician for his community. Death , by definition, is irreversible. The notion of irreversibility is a central component of the current standards of death, cardiopulmonary and neurological alike. Given that the neurological criteria−the irreversible cessation of whole brain function−is the legally recognized criterion of death in many countries, including the United States [1], forthcoming advancements in neurotechnology under the BRAIN Initiative will be crucial to the accurate determination of death. With the development of technologies that allow scientists to study how individual neurons interact in significantly greater detail, ques...

by John Banja , PhD *Editor's note: In case you missed our annual Zombies and Zombethics (TM) Symposium entitled Really, Most Sincerely Dead. Zombies, Vampires and Ghosts. Oh my! you can watch our opening keynote by Dr. Paul Root Wolpe by clicking on the image below. We recommend starting at 9:54 min. Two weeks ago, I attended a panel session on brain death at the annual conference of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities . Forgive the bad pun, but the experience left me cold and …lifeless(?). The panel consisted of three scholars revisiting the more than a decade old conversation on defining death . Despite a standing room only crowd, there was utterly nothing new. Rather, we heard a recitation of the very familiar categories that have historically figured in the “What does it mean to be dead?” debate, e.g., the irreversible cessation of cardio-respiratory activity, the Harvard Brain Death criteria , the somatic integration account, the 2008 Presidential Commissi...

By Amber Green Amber Green is currently a senior in the Emory College of Arts and Sciences, double majoring in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology and Philosophy . Her majors led her to an interest in neurophilosophy and neuroethics. She hopes to pursue a MA in Bioethics and/or Neurophilosophy and go into a career as a clinical neuroethicist after graduating in May. Having a family member pronounced dead is a very heartbreaking moment. Be it your pet, your sister, your mother, or your child, the pain you feel when the doctor reports that your loved one has passed away is overwhelming. Doctors know that there are no take-backs once they inform the family of the patient’s death, which is why there are strict procedures for a doctor to follow when declaring someone dead. However, when it comes to “brain death” and the advances of life support technology, these procedures become harder to follow and leads one to ask the question: “More importantly, if the brain is dead, are we dead?” In ...