ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on criteria which have been proposed in relation to the diagnosis of brain death. Brain-related criteria for death are only crudely reductionist if it is insisted that the person is nothing more than his brain. Loss of function, they argue, is not synonymous with destruction, and irreversible loss of function cannot therefore provide criteria for death. The irreversibility of brainstem death has been revealed in numerous studies. The possibilities of a tragic ‘false positive’ diagnosis of brain death due to over-reliance on electroencelphalogram (EEG) was manifest in 1976 after a survey of drugs whose presence, even in low levels, was associated with isoelectric periods. The irrelevance of EEG as an indicator of death lies in the fact that it does not monitor brainstem function. Any acceptable criterion for death must specify the loss of brain function and meet tests which demonstrate that total stoppage of the brain is irreversible.
