Controversial Experiment for Brain-Dead Revival Dropped

A controversial experiment to revive brain-dead accident victims has been scrapped.

The Indian Council of Medical Research's (ICMR) National Institute of Medical Statistics officially removed the "ReAnima" trial from India's clinical trial registry on Nov. 11.

The experiment began in May when Himanshu Bansal, an orthopedic surgeon at Anupam Hospital in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand, announced plans to give approximately 20 brain-dead people a mix of interventions including injections of mesenchymal stem cells, peptides, transcranial laser stimulation and median nerve stimulation.

Transcranial laser stimulation is a process that involves shinning pulses of near-infrared light in the brain, while median nerve stimulation is the electrical stimulation of a major nerve that runs from the neck to the arm. Both techniques have been proven to improve cognition in patients with traumatic brain injury.

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