Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Volke Bomb and today's question is would you really stay conscious after being decapitated? Let's look first at what consciousness is. The molecular biologist Francis Crick, one half of the research team who discovered the structure of DNA later in his career, came up with what he called
the astonishing hypothesis. It is crudely put, the idea that every aspect of human consciousness, from affinity for one's family, to a belief in God to the experience of the color green, is merely the result of electrical activity in our brain's neural networks. As he wrote in You're Nothing but a Pack of neurons, at the basis of our conscious experience are chemicals called neurotransmitters. These chemicals generate electrical signals that form the means by which neurons communicate with
one another and ultimately form neural networks. When we stimulate these networks, we experience the physical sensations and emotions that make up our lives. We store these as memories to be recalled when the neural networks that store them are
activated once more. The idea may be a bit glum, but it forms the basis of the idea that the electrical activity in the brain is the detectable trace of our conscious experience by correlation, then so long as we can detect this electrical activity through the use of technology like the e G which measures brain waves, we can assume that a person is experiencing consciousness. This is what makes a two thousand eleven study from the Netherlands so troubling.
The researchers were trying to determine whether decapitation, which is a common method of uthanizing lab rats, is humane. They connected an EEG machine to the brains of rats, decapitated them, and recorded the electrical activity in the brain after the event.
The researchers found that for about four seconds after being separated from the body, the rats brains continue to generate electrical activity between the thirteen to one hurts frequency band, which is associated with consciousness and cognition a k A. Thinking. This finding suggests the brain can continue to produce thoughts and experienced sensations for at least several seconds following decapitation
in rats. Anyway, Yet, the annals of medicine following the invention of the guillotine have some very interesting scientific observations of human decapitation. Let's look at what happens when one loses one's head. The circulatory system delivers oxygen and other necessary particles via blood to the brain so that the brain can carry out its necessary functions. Deprived of oxygen or blood, the brain's function deteriorates rapidly. Circulation takes place
in a closed system based on a pressurized environment. Blood is pumped in and out of the heart and past the lungs, where it's refreshed once more. Decapitation opens this closed system irrevocably, causing a full and massive drop in blood pressure, leaving the brain starved of both blood and oxygen. Depending on how the head is removed from the body, this loss of blood and ultimately consciousness can take longer
in some modes of decapitation than in others. Several blows to the back of the neck with a sword or axe can lead to blood loss before the head is fully severed from the body, but the design of the guillotine, the execution method of choice during the French Revolution, made
severing the head cleaner and quicker. The blade and weight assembly of the guillotine weighed more than a hundred seventy five pounds that's eight ks, and was dropped from a height of fourteen feet or just over four meters from ground level onto the back of the victim's neck. Moreover, the guillotine's blade was set within a track leading in a direct line down to the back of the victim's neck. There's a rumor that this superior execution technology led to
at least one case of apparent consciousness after decapitation. Executions in eighteenth century France were public affairs, and executioners customarily showed the head of the victim to the assembled crowd that sometimes performed some gesture of disrespect as well, as was the case with Charlotte Corday, a woman executed by guillotine in seventeen ninety three after she assassinated the revolutionary
leader Jean Paul Moran. After her head was severed, the executioner smacked its cheeks while he held it aloft, to the astonishment of the crowd. Corday's cheeks flushed and her facial expression changed into quote unequivocal marks of indignation. Most recently, in nineteen eighty nine, an army veteran reported that following a car accident that he was in with a friend, the decapitated head of his friend changed facial expressions quote first of shock or confusion, then to terror or grief.
Both King Charles the First and Queen Anne Boleyn are reported to have showed signs of trying to speak following their beheadings by executioner's swords rather than the guillotine, And when in seventeen ninety five a German researcher by the name of St. Summering spoke out against the use of the guillotine, he cited reports of decapitated heads that have ground their teeth and that the face of one decapitated person grimaced horribly when a physician inspecting the head poked
the spinal canal with his finger. But perhaps most famous was the study conducted in nineteen o five of the head of an executed criminal. Over the course of twenty five to thirty seconds of observation, the physician warded managing to get the head to open its eyes and undeniably focus them on the doctors twice by calling the executed man's name. Some say that none of this proves consciousness.
The movement seen in the phase could be the result of the voluntary muscles that control the lips and eyes merely being in spasm after a sort of short circuit, or from the relic of electrical activity. This is likely true for the rest of the body, but the head has the distinction of housing the brain, which is the seat of consciousness. The brain receives no drama from a clean decapitation, and may therefore continue to function until blood
loss causes unconsciousness and death. We know that chickens often walk around for several seconds after decapitation. The Dutch rat study mentioned earlier suggests a length of perhaps four seconds. Other studies of small animals have found up to twenty nine seconds, but any amount of time would be horrific. Take a moment to count off four seconds while you look around the room. You'll likely find you can take
in quite a bit visually and orally during that time. However, we may never fully know if a human remains conscious after the head is lost. As author Alan Bellows points out, further scientific observation of human decapitation is unlikely. Today's episode was written by Josh Clark and produced by Tyler Clang Josh, who you may have heard on a little show called Stuff You Should Know, has a new podcast coming out
called The End of the World. If you enjoy slightly glum, but nonetheless fascinating discussions like the one from today's episode, go check it out. The first episode of the End of the World drops November seven, and the trailer is up everywhere you get your podcasts, and of course, for more on this and lots of other curious topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff works dot com.