“We have heuristics—rules of thumb [to make these decisions]—but yeah, it’s almost certain that we’ve unplugged people who would’ve otherwise regained awareness,” Toker says. The line between life and death is ethical, clinical, and deeply confusing. “Now, more than ever, more centers believe we can cure coma,” Gosseries says, referencing the Curing Coma Campaign, the first global public health initiative that considers coma a treatable medical condition, launched by the Neurocritical Care Society in October 2019. Gosseries says her team is studying how patients who recover from severe brain injury reassess what makes life worth living. For Gosseries, brain death—marked by the irreversible loss of brainstem reflexes (like pupil response to light or the gag reflex)—is the medical definition of death.