bgwowk comments on Suspended Animation Inc. accused of incompetence - Less Wrong

38 Post author: CronoDAS 18 November 2010 12:20AM

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Comment author: bgwowk 07 December 2010 04:49:16AM *  5 points [-]

Animals with more sophisticated nervous systems than nematodes can survive vitrification.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20086136

Even more sophisticated neural networks, mammalian brain slices, can now be vitrified with present technology.

http://www.21cm.com/pdfs/hippo_published.pdf

Of course it is what happens to whole brains that are vitrified that really matters to cryonics. The only paper published so far on the technology presently used in cryonics applied to whole brains is this one

http://www.alcor.org/Library/pdfs/Lemler-Annals.pdf

with more micrographs from that study here

http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/cambridge.html

and many more here

http://www.alcor.org/Library/html/micrographs.html

Unlike slices, there is no expectation that cell viability is preserved in whole brains because the cryoprotectant exposure time is longer. However connectivity and extensive biochemical information is believed to be preserved, as these micrographs suggest. It is presumed, but not proven, that the effect of thermal stress fractures at cryogenic temperatures is displacement of fracture planes. This would theoretically still preserve connectivity information, although requiring hyper-advanced technology to do anything with that information.