One of my favorite lines in the Wizard of Oz goes like this:
“As Coroner I must aver, I thoroughly
examined her, and she's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead.” It has a measure of decisiveness and finality.
If someone is dead, we’d like assurances that they’re really and truly dead.
In order to determine the relative deadness of a person, there are
two different criteria that may be used. There’s the always popular clinically dead,
the medical term for when the heart stops pumping and the lungs stop breathing.
Then there’s brain dead, based on neurological criteria, that allows for a beating
heart and working lungs (many times artificially maintained by a ventilator or
respirator), but a nonfunctioning brain. Brain death determination
looks at cessation of cerebral and brainstem functions and demonstration that
the changes are irreversible.
Some definitions of death include all three markers, meaning
death is defined as the cessation
of all vital functions of the body including the heartbeat, brain activity
(including the brain stem) and breathing.
And that makes me
think of zombies.
Unfortunately,
most definitions of zombies include some reference to the supernatural or
witchcraft. The Centers for Disease Control Preparedness 101 Zombie
Apocalypse home page states: “Although its meaning has changed slightly over
the years, it refers to a human corpse mysteriously reanimated to serve the
undead.” New theories support the notion that zombies are merely humans
infected with a parasite that spreads through saliva. No matter what definition
is chosen, a zombie is a human form that
has lost the ability to reason and is no longer reliant on a heartbeat or
breathing to survive. He or she retains the ability to move, but their
movements are slow and awkward (unless one believes in zoombies). Zombies have brain function, and that is the
trait that causes most of us to fear the Zombocalypse. Luckily their brain function is very limited.
Enough for them to stagger around. Enough for them to capture people. Enough to
remember that brains are their choice of food. Mobility, lack of brain function,
and a hunger for brains is a terrifying combination.
But traditionally
zombies are not considered alive or undead. They are categorized as dead, and though they
fit the criteria because of their lack of breathing and circulation, what
about their brain function?
Dr. Steven C. Schlozman, an assistant profession of psychiatry
at Harvard Medical School, postulates that zombies suffer from Ataxic Neurodegenerative
Satiety Deficiency Syndrome or ANSD. He contends that zombie brains have some
function, as well as dysfunction, in their cerebellar and basal ganglia. He
likens the amount of brain function in zombies to that of a crocodile. Their
unpleasant behaviors, including their insatiable appetites, derive from the lack of activity in the parts of the brain that modulate behavior. But does this make them dead?
Since, at this point in time, medical technology has not created
a need for zombie organ donation, devising new definitions of dead are not at
the forefront of medical science. If, in the future, a method to safely use
zombie organs is developed, I have no doubt that a new definition will arise
and it will include the presence of limited brain function in the absence of
respiration and circulation. The process will follow the same path to
definition and acceptable use that occurred when human organ transplantation became
viable. Prior to the need of organs, one definition of death, absence of heart
beat and breathing, sufficed. After organ transplantation, a new definition of death, brain death, arose. When the
need for zombie organs is great enough, medical science will become interested
in ensuring that the answer to the question, are zombies dead or alive, will become “really most sincerely dead.”
Interested in reading more about zombies? Check out:
http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombies.htm
http://io9.com/5286145/a-harvard-psychiatrist-explains-zombie-neurobiology
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