In the United States and most European countries, the brain-death exam has become a generally agreed-upon series of bedside clinical tests that start at the top of brain, the cerebral hemispheres, and sequentially test the function of each part below: the midbrain, the pons, and finally, the medulla. While a dead brain is one thing, and a fairly easy thing to confirm, a dead person is another thing, and Marty was indulging in a bit of oversimplification when he said that “the person is in the brain, and virtually everybody in every culture agrees with that.” It would be more accurate to say
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