What is "brain death"?

What is "brain death"?

Les Weiner (Former Chair of the Department of Neurology, University of Southern California) gives expert video advice on: How long can a person be in a coma?; What is "persistent vegetative state"? and more...

It's a legal term. What it means is that the patient is on a ventilator, usually, and who is continuing to have a heartbeat, but you are breathing for that patient as the patient cannot breathe on their own. This is because your brain shows no electrical activity. The temperature is normal because if you put people in low temperature situation, you can suppress brain activity. So you have to make sure that their brain activity is normal. They have no evidence of any reflexes, so they're not maintaining their blood pressure, they're not maintaining their pulse, their temperature has been made normal, and they have no evidence of brain activity by brainwave or by any other study. That would be brain death.