Science has significantly benefited from human body donation because it helps provide a clearer picture of what is happening below the surface. To decide to donate one’s organs or body after death is a big deal that requires careful thought, but once done, it can do a lot of good.

Most folks might think that the donated cadavers are just used for research purposes, but there are actually many ways they are useful. This list explores all of the cool ways a body donation can be used, and some may surprise you.

More info: Reddit

Read More: 27 Wild Ways Bodies Get Used That May Make You Think Twice About Donating Yours To Science

#1

I used to be on a K9 search and rescue team, and we used donated human remains to train our cadaver dogs. Only partial remains for logistical reasons (hard to drag an entire body around the mountains), though, so you have to be okay with getting dismembered and potentially used for multiple things for that one.

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#2

I just read something interesting in the compost sub about how you can be composted into plantable soil when you die. I’m starting to lean toward this idea.

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#3

As someone who is registered to be a full body donor, what a cool thread. I always thought they’d just use me for autopsy practice, or understanding connective tissue problems, or something like that. The possibility of being blown up to test safety measures is pretty gnarly and I kinda hope I get that one. I know realistically I will probably be used for anatomy lessons but the small possibility is cool.

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#4

I renovated a morgue at a teaching hospital 7 years ago. The cadavers were all plasticized in a process using acetone( I was told). Was very interesting to be doing some piping overhead and a student and teacher below and off to the side doing an actual physical exam on an arm. Very respectful culture as they view the donated bodies as teaching instruments and the decedents families are returned ashes after their usefulness is complete. The hospital holds a memorial ceremony once a year and recognizes the families sacrifices and extends their gratitude. A big luncheon follows. I found it very interesting and humbling to work there.

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#5

We had “the organ lady” who also happened to be a family friend, come to my middle school with a bunch of donated organs. We got to hold a brain and compare regular lungs to smokers lungs and see a heart.

Doubt most people want a bunch of 13 year olds squishing their brain for educational purposes, but it was neat.

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#6

There’s a newer company that perfuses the bodies with cow blood and simulates a pumping heart so that surgical students/medical researchers can practice operating on bodies that actually bleed.

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#7

My mum used to be on a hospital board and had to expel some medical students for playing cricket in a hallway with a human leg.

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#8

I’m an archaeologist and I’d consider donating my body to a body farm if I had the opportunity.

Forensic anthropologists and archaeologists use body farms to study taphonomy, i.e. how post-depositional processes affect, in this case, a human corpse. In other words: how does a human body behave when decomposing in different environments, fx. in the woods vs. in a pond vs. in an oil drum or if the body is left above vs below ground as well as in different climates.

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#9

My ex helped design medical equipment and was brought a cadaver head to test one of the pieces on.

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#10

My son passed away a few years ago and we donated parts of his body. We made our names available to be “thanked” by those who benefited, but haven’t heard anything. So we don’t REALLY know what happened to his body parts.

But here’s what was donated, at least from what I remember, and what they are typically used for:

Eyes for cornea transplants and medical research

Long bones for medical research and potential bone graphs (leg and arm bones)

Heart valves for potential heart defect and heart disease patients or medical research

Ligaments, likely for ACL/MCL repairs.

Image credits: Inigomntoya

#11

Not a scientist, but dated the son if a dentist whose sister was a dentist in training… yep, they practice dentistry on cadavers. That was something I’d never thought of, but makes a lot of sense. Kinda freaked me out at the time lol.

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#12

Cadaver bone is used to pack sockets where teeth were extracted. I don’t know if that’s from “donated to science” bodies or what.

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#13

Sometimes they’re used to test things like how a body reacts in plane crashes, car collisions, or even military-grade blasts.

You thought you were donating to save lives… but you might be helping engineers build better seatbelts.

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#14

Man learns mom’s body donated for research was instead blown up in military testing

“Science”.

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#15

As a professor who teaches neuroanatomy at a medical school, here are a few:

1. Plastination – preserving body parts, organ systems, or entire cadavers forever through a process that converts them to plastic
2. Full body imaging for use in digital dissection software (via Anatomage or other)
3. In a group of 20 cadavers, at least 1 will have something strange about one of their organs that’s worthy of a case study, often that was not known or documented while they were alive
4. I personally like to take the brains out of the head to show off to students as young as 3rd grade.

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#16

Google the Body Farm in TN. Interesting place doing interesting research.

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#17

My ACL is from a cadaver donor.

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#18

At one point I spoke to someone who was using cadavers to develop a new medical imaging technology.

It was my understanding they would run body parts through their machine then dissect them.

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#19

My local teaching hospital was literally using bodies to test better ways of making medical cadavers.

Like testing various concoctions to preserve corpses. Better corpses.

So your body could be considered disposable to allow others to be used for teaching.

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#20

I used to work in a diabetes research lab with human pancreatic cells that were not good enough (viability and purity) for transplantation. The donors opted to have their organs and cells also used for research. There were some cells that after all that effort to isolate and test them, were not good enough for transplantation but there was no consent to use for research so they just discarded. I wish people could understand how important it is to be able to do some experiments with human samples… if they knew I am sure every organ/tissue donor would also opt to donate to research.

Image credits: _LuckyNinja

#21

Not really donating to science, but if you or your family chooses to donate your tissue after you die, they’ll be used to help other people get better. Even if you’re not eligible to be an organ donor, you can still donate bones, skin, tendons, and even your corneas to help other people! Corneas can restore sight, your bones are made into grafts that are used in orthopedic surgeries, and your tendons can be used to replace someone’s ACL, Achilles tendon, or diminish pain in someone’s rotator cuff. Your skin can be used to help a burn victim! By donating your tissues you can help so many other people live pain-free lives and greatly improve their quality of life.

Image credits: halcyoncolors

#22

Human cadavers are so valuable for research (especially medical and biomedical engineering studies) that they are maximized to get as much research out of them as possible and researchers typically only use/get the absolute bare minimum to do their study. Meaning, the bodies are separated into many different parts and sent out to multiple different research teams doing all kinds of research. Someone doing ankle research might get just a foot and ankle. Someone else will get the eyes. Someone else might get segments of bone they will cut into little cubes and test for strength. Someone else might get just the head. Individual organs…one arm sent to one lab, the other hand, elbow, skin samples, shoulder sent to four or five more labs. Someone else gets the knees to study how a new knee replacement might work. Etc, etc.

Typically, the research teams have to return everything that remains back to the donation center when they are done. Everything is tracked/serial numbered. The donation center collects it all up. Once everything is used and has all been returned, they then return the remains to the family (usually cremated).

Getting approval for a full body cadaver to use in one research study is really hard and expensive. There is a LOT of other studies that could have happened instead of just the one.

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#23

I was talking to my wife the other day when we got to the topic of my minor, which has two excursion days to the cadaver lab of another university (my uni has a cadaver lab, but I assume space or resource restrictions detour non-medical students to a different university). We’re going to be looking at human soft tissue physiology to better understand what we look like now, as a basis of understanding human evolution.

My wife asked, “Wait, do they use actual human corpses for that? I always kind of assumed they used realistic dolls.”

Now, admittedly, I’m not 100% sure if we’re looking at actual human tissue, but I’d assume we wouldn’t go to a cadaver lab if models would do the trick here. I assume people who donate their body to science are told that might include education of medical students, but education of students of human evolution is probably not on their mind.

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