A patient in a coma, supported by machines that replace heart and lungs, is technically 'brain-dead.' Such a patient:
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Correct answer: Has lost the property of self-consciousness
A brain-dead comatose patient maintained by life-support machines still exhibits cellular metabolism, but has permanently lost self-consciousness — the ability to sense and respond to environmental stimuli. This makes such patients a boundary case that challenges standard definitions of the living state.
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More What is living? questions
- Choose the correct statement regarding growth in plants and animals:
- Which of the following does not exist as a non-living object but is a characteristic of all living things?
- The property of self-replication, evolution, and self-regulation are characteristic of:
- What makes it difficult to define the 'living state' in a coma patient?
- Which of the following organisms shows true regeneration?
- In unicellular organisms like bacteria or unicellular algae, growth is synonymous with: