Your brain can survive
for several minutes
after your heart stops.
But what if your brain took a time-out
and stopped working for five seconds?
In case you haven't noticed,
your brain is important.
It controls your thoughts and movements,
as well as all the bodily functions
that keep you alive.
This amazing organ can survive
up to six minutes after your heart stops.
But sometimes, the human brain
can take a coffee break.
When most of the brain
activity shuts down,
you could be in a coma
or a vegetative state.
These conditions
could be temporary or permanent.
But they’re different from your brain
stopping completely.
If your brain stopped for five seconds,
all your primary functions like pulse,
breathing and blood pressure
would shut down.
But what would happen
if your brain started working again?
Could you go back to your everyday life?
I'm sorry to break it to you,
but if your brain shut off
for five seconds, you'd be brain-dead.
And brain death is irreversible.
Though at that moment,
you might not look dead.
You'd seem to be in a deep, deep sleep.
So before declaring you brain-dead,
your doctors would need
to perform several tests.
They'd shine a light
in your eyes to confirm
that your pupils are no longer reacting.
They'd also check
whether you have any reaction to pain
or if your gag reflex still kicks in.
Once it's confirmed, you have no pulse
and no registered brain activity,
you would be clinically dead.
Sadly, nothing can be done
to reverse this.
Your brain wouldn't be able
to come back to life
five seconds later.
But what would be happening
to your body?
Without any medical intervention,
brain death would lead
to multiple organ failure,
hypothermia and respiratory failure.
Since your lungs no longer work,
your body wouldn't get any new oxygen.
Your cardiac muscles would start to die.
Within an hour or so,
your heart would stop.
But the death process wouldn't end there.
About one week after your brain death,
your kidneys would start to fail.
And so would your immune functions.
That's because your brain
would no longer be creating the hormones
needed for all the biological
processes in your body.
If there's one bright side
to all of this,
it's at least you wouldn't suffer.
You wouldn't feel anything.
But that’s only because
you're completely dead.
If you were a registered organ donor,
the doctors would have methods
to keep your body functioning
for a long time, even after brain death.
They would need to maintain
a healthy environment for your organs,
so they'd provide your body
with necessary medications,
hormones and fluids.
And they'd keep you on a ventilator.
This breathing machine
would inflate your lungs
with air to keep your heart beating.
As long as there's oxygen,
your heart can keep on pumping.
During this time,
they'd cover your body
in blankets to keep you warm.
You would look like you were asleep.
Once the doctors harvested
all the organs they could,
this treatment would cease.
It would make no ethical sense
to keep your body alive.
But it would all be worth it
because your organs
would be available for patients
desperately waiting for organ
or tissue donations.
And most organs come from
brain-dead donors.
But brain death doesn't happen
all that often.
It occurs in only
one out of every 200 hospital deaths.
So you can see why organ transplants
are so hard to come by.
Or I guess you could see if you weren't,
you know, brain-dead.
Would it be any better
if you were in a coma and never woke up?
Well, that's a story for another WHAT IF.