Can a brain be kept alive and functioning outside a body?

[KingKai]

This is not a joke.

Is it by all accounts impossible to do this, supposing that an artificial heart with artificial blood transport systems (that provide oxygen and all needed nutrients) were used to keep the cells from dying.

Also, assuming the brain was yours, what would it feel like to have no sensory input whatsoever? Would you feel alive and conscious? Would you be dreaming?


Also, what would happen if you hooked up two brains together? How about a hundred brains? a thousand? via physical neural networks and synapses. Would the resultant organism think as one, or would its thoughts be chaotic and cluttered?

 

[KingKai]

What if I wanted to have my brain transported into the body of a 6'2'' athlete with a rippling 6-pack and a handsome face?

 

[Pythagorean]

See monkey head transplants on youtube.

 

[Pythagorean]

(and no, currently there's no method to keep a brain alive in a vat or whatnot.)

 

[FainAvis]

My daughter asserts that her mother is the most reasonable person she knows. Since that is not my experience of her I can only conclude that she has undergone a complete brain transplant.

 

[Enigman]

This is not a joke.

Seriously? King Kai wants to be Doctor Gero ?

Or is it Doctor Wheelo?
[The post assumes you're a DBZ fan, if not ignore it...]

 

[Ryan_m_b]

This is not a joke.

Is it by all accounts impossible to do this, supposing that an artificial heart with artificial blood transport systems (that provide oxygen and all needed nutrients) were used to keep the cells from dying.

We do not have the means to safely remove a brain from a body and keep it alive for any length of time.

Also, assuming the brain was yours, what would it feel like to have no sensory input whatsoever? Would you feel alive and conscious? Would you be dreaming?

This question is unanswerable because it essentially boils down to "what would it be like to do something we don't know how to do".

Also, what would happen if you hooked up two brains together? How about a hundred brains? a thousand? via physical neural networks and synapses. Would the resultant organism think as one, or would its thoughts be chaotic and cluttered?

"Hooking" brains together is so science fiction the question is even more unanswerable than the previous.

There's nothing really to discuss here.