**Patient 0: Post-mortem Biopsy Request **

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_Specifics:_****

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Brain is recently extracted from 17 year old female.

Deceased had died slowly over the course of a week.

Her behaviour was observed and noted to have progressively worsened.

She was recorded to be observant of others but not engaging and non-verbal.

Eyes could track until they became unresponsive with a vacant stare.

Her status turned dissociative and then stuporous. Clarity of mental status could not be gauged.

Psychiatrist, Neurologist, and Neuropathologist oversaw exams testing for consciousness. Assements are available on patient file.

_Conclusion_: Her behaviour was not a result of being cognisant. Patient exhibited responses coinciding with the condition shifting between a minimally conscious state and a persistent vegetative state. The medical team overseeing her had tested numerous differentials at various stages during her care.

_Final diagnosis:_ Brain death.

_Cause of death_: Brain death.

_Due to_: Undetermined.

Cause of brain death to be determined from postmortem biopsy results.

Therfore, biopsy of brain is requested to confirm diagnosis.

_Doctor Osbin, signing off at 4:20 pm. _

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_Veera Cotting, MD_

_Neuropathologist _

_Winston Laboratory _

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I double check.

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Switching out the current sample with another from another white matter region of the brain. It’s white matter. Obviously, makes sense.

Taking that out I replace it with the dish holding the cerebral cortex under the microscope. _White matter. _There’s not a spec of that gray-pink tint that comes with gray matter, which I would expect from this section of the brain.

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Maybe, they got mixed up. Even though this is clearly the outer layer of the brain. I check the cerebellum. All white matter.

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There is no way this girl could function let alone live with a brain that has only one type of matter. In the end, whenever that was, she had no brain activity whatsoever. Except, she was perfectly normal until a month ago. The only reason I see is, that somehow her brain’s gray matter slowly turned white. With that she slowly lost awareness and consciousness.

_How did this even happen? _

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_Are there other patients like her?_

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