Donated Brains on Life Support Open New Frontiers for Drug Testing
A New Haven startup, Bexorg, uses BrainEx to perfuse donated postmortem human brains, keeping cellular activity alive long enough to study how experimental CNS drugs—potential Alzheimer's therapies—behave in real human tissue. While there is no consciousness and safeguards are in place, the method raises ethical questions about life-death boundaries and could improve CNS drug development.