I've been thinking of revisiting one of my older short stories recently, and a key theme of which is the reanimation of a dead body, and the effects that decomposition has on the brain, and what effect that would have on the reasoning of a brain that has been reanimated. Well, I wrote the story back in '07, when I was 17, and I was very naive as a writer, caring little for research outside of Mary Shelly, H.P. Lovecraft's, and Edgar Allen Poe; so I was wondering what effect decomposition has on the body as a whole? And if anyone has any experience with dead bodies.
brain cells start 'dying off' within minutes of being deprived of oxygen, so the brain of a corpse would not be usable, even if the body could be reanimated later, unless some method of preserving the brain cells before death occurs could be developed... however, what all writers/imaginers of reanimation/cryogenic preservation and such seem to always fail to consider is that while a brain's physical integrity could possibly be maintained, the 'mind' is something totally separate from its bodily generator... and the electrical energy that is proven to be what our mind consists of, by eeg capture/recording, will no longer be there... energy, as has also been proven, can not be destroyed, but can only change form, and/or be transmitted elsewhere... so, wherever the energy that formed the mind of the deceased had 'gone' it couldn't be 'found' and brought back to reactivate the body it had 'left'... here's a piece i did on the subject a while ago... it may help some... it's a fascinating area of study, isn't it!? love and hugs, maia
Mammamaia is right. The common rule of thumb is that if the body is deprived of oxygen for more than 4 minutes, brain damage begins to occur. The damage can be general if the person is suffocating or localized to a portion of the brain if the oxygen deprivation is caused by a stroke.
