Shawn Mikula on Brain Preservation Protocols and Extensions

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Recently published article in Nature Methods on a new protocol for preserving mouse brains that allows the neurons to be traced across the entire brain, something that wasn't possible before. This is exciting because in as little as 3 years, the method could be extended to larger mammals (like humans), and pave the way for better neuroscience or even brain uploads. From the abstract:

Here we describe a preparation, BROPA (brain-wide reduced-osmium staining with pyrogallol-mediated amplification), that results in the preservation and staining of ultrastructural details throughout the brain at a resolution necessary for tracing neuronal processes and identifying synaptic contacts between them. Using serial block-face electron microscopy (SBEM), we tested human annotator ability to follow neural ‘wires’ reliably and over long distances as well as the ability to detect synaptic contacts. Our results suggest that the BROPA method can produce a preparation suitable for the reconstruction of neural circuits spanning an entire mouse brain

http://blog.brainpreservation.org/2015/04/27/shawn-mikula-on-brain-preservation-protocols/

Here we describe a preparation, BROPA (brain-wide reduced-osmium staining with pyrogallol-mediated amplification), that results in the preservation and staining of ultrastructural details throughout the brain at a resolution necessary for tracing neuronal processes and identifying synaptic contacts between them. Using serial block-face electron microscopy (SBEM), we tested human annotator ability to follow neural ‘wires’ reliably and over long distances as well as the ability to detect synaptic contacts. Our results suggest that the BROPA method can produce a preparation suitable for the reconstruction of neural circuits spanning an entire mouse brain

http://blog.brainpreservation.org/2015/04/27/shawn-mikula-on-brain-preservation-protocols/

To add my own highly anecdotal evidence: my experience is that most people with a background in computer science or physics have no active model of how consciousness maps to brains, but when prodded they indeed usually come up with some form of functionalism*.

My own position is that I'm highly confused by consciousness in general, but I'm leaning slightly towards substance dualism, I have a background in computer science.

*: Though note that quite a few of these people simultaneously believe that it is fundamentally impossible to do accurate natural language parsing with a turing machine, so their position might not be completely thought through.

I'm leaning slightly towards substance dualism

This seems a bit like trying to fix a problem by applying a patch that causes a lot more problems. The stunning success of naturalistic explanations so far in predicting the universe (plus Occam's Razor) alone would enough to convince me that consciousness is a naturalistic process (and, in fact, they were what convinced me, plus a few other caveats). I'd assign maybe 95% probability to this conclusion. Still, I'd be interested in hearing what led you to your conclusion. Could you expand in more detail?