system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: At which point can we be scientifically considered dead?
gpt
Biologists here:
 
This is an awesome question! And a complex, tricky one.

A exact moment or thing we can point to and say “this person is dead” would be what we call “Biological Death” or Biologically dead instead of Legally dead or Medically brain dead.

Biological death is measured by A few criteria that have to be met.

1. No electrical activities inside the brain and brain stem, or any sort of activity within the spinal column 

(brain dead patients can have no brain electrical activities but still have random electrical pulses created in the spinal column or brain stem)

2. Pulmonary circulation can not be maintained naturally or artificially

(We are unable to keep the heart pumping and blood oxygenated, either naturally or by the use of machine or medications)

3. Respiratory function cannot be maintained, naturally or artificially

(We are unable to get your lungs to absorb oxygen and transfer carbon dioxide, we can inflate and deflate them, but they aren’t oxygenating your blood)


If all 3 of these are met, we consider that to be Biological Death, theres no way to keep the brain, or the body alive by modern scientific means.

But, this is constantly changing, as we advance and understand more, we push the definition of “death” further and further back.