The experiment poses questions about the barrier between life and death (Getty)

In a morbid experiment which raises questions about the barrier between life and death, scientists have ‘revived’ pig brains hours after slaughter.

The researchers found that cell death could be halted, and connections in the brain could be restored, even after death.

But the thirty-two pig brains collected from an abbatoir showed no signs of consciousness, the researchers said.

The Yale team use pumps, heaters, and bags of artificial blood at body temperature to keep the brains alive.

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Researchers found working synapses – connections between brain cells – and a normal response to drugs.

This all happened 10 hours after ‘death’ – although EEG scans of the brain showed no signs of consciousness.

Prof Nenad Sestan, a professor of neuroscience at Yale University, said: ‘Cell death in the brain occurs across a longer time window that we previously thought.

‘What we are showing is the process of cell death is a gradual, stepwise process.

‘And that some of those processes can be either postponed, preserved or even reversed.’

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