Long-term memories could potentially be preserved with this technique!
The field of cryonics — the low-temperature preservation of animals and humans with hopes of future revival — has been taking off in the recent months. Now, for the first time, scientists have successfully cryonically frozen and recovered a mammal’s brain.
The researchers say the rabbit brain was revived in near-perfect condition, with all of the cell membranes, synapses, and intracellular structures intact. This is monumental because it suggests that all of the components that constitute personal identity, including memory and personality, could potentially be frozen and preserved for a long period of time, and then uploaded to a computer or reanimated in the future.
"This is a big deal," John Smart, co-founder of the non-profit Brain Preservation Foundation, told Motherboard. "It’s the first time that we have a procedure that can protect everything neuroscientists think is involved with learning and memory. Given the results announced today, it seems to me that long-term memories are successfully preserved by this technique. This is not yet certain or universally agreed, but seems highly likely from my position."
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21st Century Medicine, an independent research group led by MIT graduate Robert McIntyre, was awarded the “Small Mammal and Brain Preservation Prize” by the Brain Preservation Foundation for the ingenious technique used to bring the rabbit’s frozen brain back to life.
By tweaking former cryopreservation techniques, the researchers coined a new one: “Aldehyde-Stabilised Cryopreservation.” It’s been published in the journal Cryobiology.
How’d they do it?
The researchers used a chemical compound called glutaraldehyde in order to stabilize the brain and prevent decay in the internal structures — the glutaraldehyde is what sets this technique apart from others.
To ensure that the synaptic structure and the brain’s connectome — or the complex web of connections that keep the 86 billion-ish neurons active — wasn’t damaged during the process, the scientists slowly added a cryoprotectant liquid as the brain underwent cooling. This step was particularly important because the number one reason why cryopreservation of the brain has failed in the past is internal damage.
Next, the brain was cooled to -210 degrees Fahrenheit (-130 Celsius) over 4 hours, converting it to a glass-like structure and preparing it for long-term storage. In order to thaw it out again, the scientists would just have to gently reheat it and flush out the cryoprotectant chemicals.
The Brain Preservation Foundation assigned judges to use electron microscopy imaging in order to compare the brain before and after being frozen and resurrected.
"Every neuron and synapse looks beautifully preserved across the entire brain," Brain Preservation Foundation president and judge, Kenneth Hayworth, said in a statement. "Simply amazing, given that I held in my hand this very same brain when it was frozen solid."
Undeniably, this is a huge leap forward for the fields of cryonics and neuroscience. The next step is to preserve a larger mammal’s brain, so the Brain Preservation Foundation has a prize lined up for the next team of researchers that successfully freezes and recovers a pig’s brain.
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“It’s a highly personal decision, but we believe that if these techniques can be validated in large animals, we should be able to make them increasingly available in society,” Smart told Motherboard. “I think the question of preservation will be one of the more valuable social conversations we can have.”
As for the ability to preserve an individual’s consciousness, scientists aren’t totally there yet.
"As to knowing that these techniques capture 'the rest of the person', including personality and consciousness: we will get there, but more slowly," Smart said. "Consciousness is still not definitively understood in neuroscience, though neuroscientists are beginning to offer promising materialist models."
Imagine a future that holds the possibility of being frozen and later resurrected with all brain functions perfectly intact — waking up in the year 3000 would certainly be one for the books. Hopefully by then we’ll have figured out hoverboards and terraforming other planets.
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