vixstile

Here is a question of mine that is pretty creepy:

If have to get a limb amputated, can I ask the doctor to give it back to me so I can keep it?

doghouse

My problem with these anecdotal reports is I’m not convinced they can discriminate between reflex activity (eye movements, etc.) and conscious movements.

From a theoretical standpoint, decapitation immediately severs the carotid and vertebral arteries. With this total loss of blood flow to the brain, unconsciousness would be quick but not immediate, probably 5 seconds or so. Actual brain death would take a bit longer.

Regarding objective data, there is actually some research on this in rats. This was in order to determine if this is a humane method of euthanasia. Electroencephalographic activity (electrical activity originating form the cerebral cortex) persists for 13-14 seconds after decapitation. But some of the studies question whether this correlates with consciousness in this situation.

In summary, unconsciousness is surely pretty quick. But because human volunteers for this type of study seem hard to come by, I’m not sure we can know if it is immediate.


Vanderwolf CH, Buzak DP, Cain RK, et al. Neocortical and hippocampal electrical activity following decapitation in the rat. Brain Res 1988;451:340-344.

Derr RF. Pain perception in decapitated rat brain. Life Sci 1991;49:1399-1402.

Holson RR. Euthanasia by decapitation: evidence that this technique produces prompt, painless unconsciousness in laboratory rodents. Neurotoxicol Teratol1992;14:253-257.

Mikeska JA, Klemm WR. EEG evaluation of humaneness of asphyxia and decapitation euthanasia of the laboratory rat. Lab Anim Sci 1975:25;175-179.

doghouse

Wouldn’t hurt to ask. But in general, anything that gets removed at surgery gets submitted to pathology. I suppose you could get the limb after the pathologist has examined it.

And I mean anything. If a kid swallows a coin, for example, and a surgeon has to remove it, it goes to the pathologist. The report comes back: “Diagnosis: penny.”

In some cases this is mostly for legal CYA purposes.

Koyaanisqatsi

When I was growing up in Oregon, a neighbor of ours had fallen off a truck when he was a kid and effectively destroyed his arm, but instead of having it amputated, he had it sealed off somehow and kept it in a sling as if it were just broken or sprained or something.

Talk about creepy! We all assumed he had to have regular embalming injections or the like to keep it from decomposing.

Anyway, off, but sort of on topic, here's an even creepier thing to contemplate that ties in with amputation; i.e., phantom limb/pain syndrome.

If the brain continues to think that an amputated limb is still "there," what the hell does that mean to a severed head? I would guess that the act of beheading would be such severe trauma that the brain wouldn't even allow the consciousness to feel it.

But, short of actually experiencing it, that's one that can only be speculated about. Though I recall something in one of Deepak Chopra's early books (back when he was still somewhat of a doctor instead of a pop icon) regarding an experiment performed on cells taken from pilots in training (the specifics escape me, so forgive the sketchiness of this).

As memory serves, the pilots were all watching airplane crash test footage in order to test their stress reactions and allegedly (according to Chopra, anyway) the various tests included cellular stress as well and, apparently, while studying the cells in a lab several miles away, there was still "live" cellular activity going on. When the scientists called the other lab where the pilots were being tested and asked what was happening at that moment, the answer was that the pilots were watching more crash test footage.

Long story short (and convoluted from memory), the point Chopra was making was that the supposedly "dead" (or at least severed) cells that had been taken several miles away to be analyzed, were showing stress reactions identical to the live, still attached cells at the same time that the pilots were under stressful conditions.

I should try to find that book, I suppose, but perhaps others know of it and can qualify it better. This was part of a section discussing how all particles that come into contact with other particles apparently remain in contact with each other, no matter how far apart they are, so perhaps the answer to the OP question may lie in disciplines slightly to the left or right, rather than head on.

Sorry, couldn't resist. And should have.

Mad Kally

I have a question. Why would you want to keep an amputated limb? It would decompose anyway.

cricket

Here's that other thread from a month or two ago.

pz

A friend of mine lost a leg. He defleshed it, pinned the bones together, and mounted it on his office wall.

Abacus

Now that's just creepy. I'd like to see it.

Puck

I have a thing about keeping all my parts together, I'd want to at least take it home and bury it where the rest of me will go some day. I forgot to tell the dentist when I had some molars removed that I wanted them. When the drugs wore off and I relaized they were in another town, I bummed out.

Yeah, it makes no sense, but since when are we humans good at sense?!

vixstile

I could just eat it! Bwah ah ah ah ah ahhhhh!!!!

Creepy.