There are good reasons why those declared dead on neurologic criteria are dead, but they are not necessarily the reasons that have been traditionally endorsed. In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that "brain-dead" bodies are not dead on biological grounds, which means the definition of death and the operational criteria to satisfy it are not consistent with one another. In other words, it is entirely possible to fulfill the neurologic criterion of death (a dead brain) but not the definition of death (cessation of integrated functioning or fundamental work of the organism) [1].
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