Harvard Criteria (1968)
Definition
The four-point diagnostic criteria for a permanently non-functioning brain published by the Harvard Ad Hoc Committee in JAMA: unreceptivity and unresponsivity, no movements or spontaneous breathing, no reflexes, and a flat electroencephalogram. The foundational document of the modern brain-death framework.
Related terms
- Dead-Donor Rule
- The ethical and legal principle that vital organs may only be retrieved from individuals who have already been declared legally dead. It...
- Molecular Death
- The progressive, tissue-by-tissue irreversible failure of cellular metabolism that follows somatic death. Different tissues undergo molecular death at different rates, ranging from...
- Somatic Death
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- TOHTA 1994
- The Transplantation of Human Organs and Tissues Act 1994 (India), amended in 2011. Section 2(d) defines brain-stem death as the permanent and...
- Uniform Determination of Death Act 1981 (UDDA)
- US model legislation, drafted by the President's Commission, that provides two legally equivalent definitions of death: irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory...
Explained in
- Death: Brain, Cardiopulmonary and Molecular DefinitionsThe four-point diagnostic criteria for a permanently non-functioning brain published by the Harvard Ad Hoc Committee in JAMA: unreceptivity and unresponsivity,...