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Does the brain stay alive after decapitation?
For centuries, people have been saying that after a head is cut off, the brain can stay alive and conscious for up to 20-30 seconds.
This concept first appeared during the French Revolution. On July 17, 1793, a woman named Charlotte Corday was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist, politician and revolutionary. After the blade dropped and Corday’s head fell, one of the executioner’s assistants picked it up and slapped its cheek. According to witnesses, Corday’s eyes turned to look at the man and her face changed to an expression of indignation. Following this incident, people executed by guillotine during the Revolution were asked to blink afterward, and witnesses claim that the blinking occurred for up to 30 seconds.
Another often-told tale of demonstrated consciousness following beheading dates to 1905. French physician Dr. Gabriel Beaurieux witnessed the beheading of a man named Languille. He wrote that immediately afterward, “the eyelids and lips … worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds.” Dr. Beaurieux called out his name and said that Languille’s eyelids “slowly lifted up, without any spasmodic contraction” and that “his pupils focused themselves.” This happened a second time, but the third time Beaurieux spoke, he got no response.
However, most modern physicians believe that the reactions described above are actually reflexive twitching of muscles, rather than conscious, deliberate movement. Cut off from the heart (and therefore, from oxygen), the brain immediately goes into a coma and begins to die. According to Dr. Harold Hillman, consciousness is “probably lost within 2-3 seconds, due to a rapid fall of intracranial perfusion of blood.” So while it’s not entirely impossible for someone to still be conscious after being decapitated, it’s not likely.
