In France, death remains taboo. Some may be uncomfortable talking about it, others are intrigued… Either way, it is a natural physiological process widely studied by researchers and scientists around the world. . “Death is the interruption of life and biological functions that characterizes it. It is also the loss of consciousness, of personality, of everything that makes us a sensitive and social being.defines Valérie Mils, Lecturer in cell biology – developmental biology center – Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse. Death is a process that takes its time since, except in cases of violent or accidental death, it is the inevitable outcome of the irreversible aging of our organs.“. But which organ “fails” first? And last?
“The just deceased body is like an orchestra where each musician plays his part without a conductor. What follows is a cacophony that no longer resembles the symphony that the players should produce“, she explains during an exhibition at the Toulouse Museum. “UOnce blood circulation is interrupted, when natural death by cardiac arrest, the organs are no longer irrigated and the activity of their cells will gradually stop. Cardiac arrest causes other organs to fail one after the other. Death is not an instantaneous phenomenon: not all organs die at the same time. This is also what makes it possible to transplant organs even though the donor has died. This cessation of metabolism, that is to say of all the functions of the body (heartbeat, blood circulation, breathing, interneuronal communication, etc.) will have consequences on the state of the body which will deteriorate. gradually”, explains Dr Michel Sapanet, director of the Poitou-Charentes Institute of Legal Medicine.
As we will have understood, (natural) death is therefore not instantaneous and it would seem that it follows a defined chronology.
► It often begins with cardio-respiratory arrest (heart stoppage) which prevents blood oxygenation and organ irrigation.
► The brain can still function for several minutes (this is why since 1968, cardio-respiratory arrest is no longer considered sufficient to declare the individual dead and the criterion for death today is the cessation of brain functioning or “brain death”).
► After brain death, the progressive and desynchronized death of the different organs begins:
- The first cells to die are those lining our blood vessels
- The kidneys, pancreas and liver are altered by the digestive enzymes that they produce and follow in less than thirty minutes (in the case of organ donations, they are kept artificially active)
- Muscles that contain large energy reserves last a little longer.
Finally, the cells of the skin, bones and cornea are those which resist the longest, up to 1 or 2 days.
