Although “brain dead” is a term many people erroneously associate with a coma-like condition or use to humorously describe an ignorant person, brain death is a legal and medical term that describes th

Although “brain dead” is a term many people erroneously associate with a coma-like condition or use to humorously describe an ignorant person, brain death is a legal and medical term that describes the irreversible loss of total brain function, even when the body can be kept going for a while using technology such as a ventilator. Since 1970, every state has added brain death to the legal and more familiar definition of death as the irreversible end of breathing and heartbeat. The addition of brain death as a legal definition of death revolutionized organ transplantation, because waiting until a person died naturally to harvest organs often resulted in organs too damaged for successful transplant. With brain death, organs could be taken before breathing and heartbeat stopped, and organ transplantation became commonplace.