Cadaveric spasm - wikipedia Cadaveric spasm This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. ( Learn how and when to remove these template messages ) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. ( August 2012 ) This article needs attention from an expert in Biology. Please add a reason or a talk parameter to this template to explain the issue with the article. WikiProject Biology may be able to help recruit an expert. ( August 2012 ) Cadaveric spasm, also known as postmortem spasm, instantaneous rigor, cataleptic rigidity, or instantaneous rigidity, is a rare form of muscular stiffening that occurs at the moment of death and persists into the period of rigor mortis. Cadaveric spasm can be distinguished from rigor mortis being stronger stiffening of the muscles that ca n't be easily undone like rigor mortis. The cause is unknown, but is usually associated with violent deaths happening under extremely physical circumstances with intense emotion. Contents 1 Manifestation 2 Physiological mechanism 3 Controversy 4 References 5 Bibliography Manifestation Cadaveric spasm may affect all muscles in the body, but typically only groups, such as the forearms, or hands. Cadaveric spasm is seen in cases of drowning victims when grass, weeds, roots or other materials are clutched, and provides evidence of life at the time of entry into the water. Cadaveric spasm often crystallizes the last activity one did before death and is therefore significant in forensic investigations, e.g. holding onto a knife tightly. Physiological mechanism ATP is required to reuptake calcium into the sarcomere 's sarcoplasmic reticulum ( SR ). When a muscle is relaxed, the myosin heads are returned to their `` high energy '' position, ready and waiting for a binding site on the actin filament to become available. Because there is no ATP available, previously released calcium ions can not return to the SR. These leftover calcium ions move around inside the sarcomere and may eventually find their way to a binding site on the thin filament 's regulatory protein. Since the myosin head is already ready to bind, no additional ATP expenditure is required and the sarcomere contracts. When this process occurs on a larger scale, the stiffening associated with rigor mortis can occur. It mainly occurs during high ATP use. Sometimes, cadaveric spasms can be associated with erotic asphyxiation resulting in death. Cadaveric spasm has been posed as an explanation for President Kennedy 's reaction to the fatal head shot in his 1963 assassination, to indicate why his head moved backward after the shot. When the body of Kurt Cobain was discovered, his left hand tightly clutched the barrel of the shotgun that killed him, indicating he had been alive and holding the weapon before his death, rather than having been killed by another person and the scene then arranged to suggest suicide. Controversy Matthias Pfaffli and Dau Wyler, Professors of Legal Medicine at University of Bern, Switzerland, posed five requirements in order for a death to have been observed and classified as containing a cadaveric spasm : The body part hypothesized of undergoing cadaveric spasm must be freestanding against the force of gravity The deceased must be observed before the rigor mortis has developed There must be adequate and continuous documentation of post mortem changes in respect to the lividity of the deceased The scene of the death must be undisturbed before examination of the crime scene No third party may be present at the death to ensure no manipulation of the body Because of the improbability that all of these requirements may be examined in one subject, cadaveric spasms are unlikely to be consistently documented and therefore proved existent. Very minimal to no pathophysiological or scientific basis exists to support the validity of cadaveric spasms. Chemically, this phenomenon can not be explained as being analogous to `` true '' rigor mortis. Therefore, a variety of other factors have been examined and explored in an effort to alternatively account for the cases of supposed instantaneous rigor mortis that have been reported. In a study reported in The International Journal of Legal Medicine, there was no consistent evidence of cadaveric spasms even in deaths of the same type. Out of 65 sharp - force suicides, only two victims still held their weapon post mortem. This low incidence rate suggests that genuine cadaveric spasm was not exhibited. Gravity may play a large factor in the trapping of limbs and other objects under the body at the time of death, and the subsequent observed placement of limbs after death. In fatalities related to cranial or neural injury, nerve damage in the brain may inhibit the ability to release a weapon from the hand. The flexion of agonist and antagonist muscles in conjunction may additionally contribute to the observed fixation of an object or weapon. References Jump up ^ `` Postmortem Changes and Time of Death '' ( PDF ). Dundee.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012 - 08 - 22. Jump up ^ KNÜSEL, CHRISTOPHER ( 1996 ). `` DEATH, DECAY, AND RITUAL RECONSTRUCTION : ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF CADAVERIC SPASM ''. Oxford journal of archaeology. 15 : 121 -- 128. Jump up ^ Lyle, Douglas P. ( 2004 ). Forensics for Dummies. Indianapolis, Indiana : Wiley Publishing, Inc. p. 165. ISBN 0 - 7645 - 5580 - 4. ^ Jump up to : Bedford, Paul J. ; Tsokos, Michael ( 2013 - 06 - 01 ). `` The occurrence of cadaveric spasm is a myth ''. Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology. 9 ( 2 ) : 244 -- 248. ISSN 1547 - 769X. doi : 10.1007 / s12024 - 012 - 9391 - 5. ^ Jump up to : Pirch, J. ; Schulz, Y. ; Klintschar, M. ( 2013 - 09 - 01 ). `` A case of instantaneous rigor ? ''. International Journal of Legal Medicine. 127 ( 5 ) : 971 -- 974. ISSN 0937 - 9827. doi : 10.1007 / s00414 - 013 - 0881 - 0. ^ Jump up to : Madea, Burkhard ( 2013 - 06 - 01 ). `` Cadaveric spasm ''. Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology. 9 ( 2 ) : 249 -- 250. ISSN 1547 - 769X. doi : 10.1007 / s12024 - 012 - 9403 - 5. Bibliography Jayawardena, Hemamal, Forensic Medicine and Medical Law, 2 Eds ( 2004 ), Siddhartha Press, Colombo Sri Lanka. 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Question: what is it called when a dead body moves
Answer: Cadaveric spasm