from Hacker News

Decapitation in Rats: Latency to Unconsciousness and the ‘Wave of Death’ (2011)

by matonias on 12/11/21, 9:54 PM with 13 comments

• by ggm on 12/11/21, 10:04 PM

  I believe some things about cellular and neural activity are about bi-stable states of being. You expend energy holding state A and can be in state B by changing expenditure of energy.

  If you disrupt neural and oxygenated blood flow, there would be an initial pressure and energy drop. But, clearly most cells get a simultaneous uh-oh kick. If it took about 60 seconds for them to hold back the change from intra cellular holdings and then flip state, I would not be surprised.

  Muscle meat takes longer to shed its lactic acid burden. That's what meat hanging is about. I'm told you can see muscle twitches in hung carcases for some time.

  Van Jacobson's work on TCP included the network effect of buffer and delay causing window synchronisation. You would think a brain might also be forced into a co-aligned state by a single massive all encompassing trauma like loss of oxygenated blood in one stroke (sorry)

• by jjtheblunt on 12/12/21, 2:27 AM

  Is no one else disturbed that this is only going on because humans treat lab rats like invaluable unemotional beings?

• by aliswe on 12/11/21, 10:32 PM

  didnt read the article, but it reminded me that a person mentioned in the book surveillance and punishment by foucault (iirc), was going to be decapitated and promised to keep blinking his eyes - on his severed head - as long as he could.

  the author didnt disclose the results though!

• by rlucas on 12/12/21, 4:46 AM

  Weirdly reminiscent of the sci fi plot element in Sawyer, “The Terminal Experiment.”