....so if separated, it is Shrub* who would be unable to function or is that in fact true?
<snip>
Life <Bush> Without Brain
A heroine in Tarantino's Curdled was so eager to know whether a human head will be able to speak after it is cut that she couldn't rest until she ascertained it herself. As they say, this is a creative fantasy. But how it actually happens in fact? Is it a true axiom that says a human body cannot live without brain and dies almost instantly when the brain stops functioning? It is known that body of a decapitated chicken can move for some time. This fact cannot be explained with reflex actions, as clonus commands originate from the brain. Probably, the head of a chicken is not so perfect as a human head. Can similar things happen with humans?
Any doctor knows that when the head is separated from the human body, the heart inside of this body still continues functioning for some time. It means that agonies of the body are still possible after decapitation, but it's generally believed that a headless body cannot perform movements. Once the St.Petersburg press reported about a man who gathered mushrooms in the forest and found an explosive device. The man took the devilish device; and an explosion that sounded next tore his head off. Witnesses saw that the decapitated mushroomer managed somehow to walk 200 meters more, at that his 3-meter way was along a narrow plank across a brook.
WWII soldiers told they saw bodies of their comrades continued attacks on the enemy while their heads were hanging by a thread or were torn off by shells. History tells lots of phenomena of this kind. Witnesses told they saw an executioner holding the head of a just guillotined woman, the eyes and the mouth of the victim were open wide at that. It is strange but the victim's brain was still functioning for some time, and the mouth opened as if the woman cried.
<more macabre stories>
http://wintersteel.homestead.com/Life_Without_Brain.html