• Question: I have recently gotten obsessed with the walking dead. What is your opinion (ignoring morality) on the possibility of shutting down enough of someone's brain to create what we would effectively be a zombie? Is it theoretically possible? If so, would they be dangerous in this state?

    Asked by jessthechemist to Chris, Josh, Rebecca, Rob, Susan on 24 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Josh Meyers

      Josh Meyers answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      The walking dead is awesome! Daryl is a dude.

      In theory, it might be possible to shut down parts of a persons brain so that they are ‘zombie-like’. Many anti-psychotic drugs effectively do this already! However I’m not sure we’d be able to make this change permanent (you’d have to keep taking the drugs).

      However, there is no reason whatsoever that a person in a zombie-like state would want to eat other peoples flesh. They would be a danger to themselves more than anything (for example, they might fall down some stairs).

      Also, the whole living without the heart, liver, lungs, etc. Would not ever happen. Lungs are important.

    • Photo: Rebecca Dewey

      Rebecca Dewey answered on 25 Jun 2015:

      There are some drugs that do this, and also some surgical interventions.

      In the early 20th century (with a rapid increase in the 1940s and 1950s) there was a surgical procedure called a frontal lobotomy (also known as a leukotomy. For more than 20 years, it was performed widely to treat psychiatric conditions and occasionally other stuff. It involved cutting or scraping away most of the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain in the very front, just behind your forehead.

      Many patients experienced some horrible side effects, including a zombie-like trance state. But the main thing was that for the many of them their psychotic episodes became less severe. Some people did not improve and some people got worse. Basically, it is a very crude intervention and the outcome was not predictable, so yes, there is a chance they could be dangerous – you just can’t know beforehand.

      Over 20,000 of these were performed in the USA alone, and they kept going until ani-psychotic drugs started becoming more widespread. The inventor of the surgery, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz, was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in 1949.

    • Photo: Chris Armstrong

      Chris Armstrong answered on 25 Jun 2015:

      I really hope that Daryl is still alive, and that Rick Grimes has been taught a lesson or two.

      I’m no biologist and even less of a neuroscientist buut I think the “rage” explanation in I am Legend and 28 Days makes more sense than the brain shut down idea. As Josh said you need your brain for things like breathing and moving so destroying it doesn’t make sense. As rebecca said those with lobotomys were generally pacified (at least that was the plan)

      The explanation in IaL was that something made the “rage centre” of the brain more active, making them incredibly aggressive, then they lost menaline production (??) and hated sunlight. They still ate and slept like all living things need, they just lost their humanity.

      I love that I have just spent some time of my work day debating zombies. Thank you Jess!

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