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Lumifer comments on Rationality Quotes Thread August 2015 - Less Wrong
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I don't understand why brain transplants don't seem to be a high priority for anti-ageists. It seems putting an old brain into the head of a clone would solve like half of all medical issues all at once. The other half would be extremely messy to deal with, maybe impossible, but first things first, no? Is there any serious work that's been done on this that I've overlooked? If not, why? Ethics boards, maybe?
Look at the prevalence of Alzheimer's as a function of age:
Until you solve that particular problem, transplanting brains seems to be pointless.
This is consistent with 27chaos's statement, though. If you get a body transplant at 65, you have solved a number of medical problems, and the chance of living the next 30 years without having to worry about Alzheimer's is ~70%. Of course, Alzheimer's disease accounts for only 60-80% of cases of dementia. But still, I think there would be a market.
It is also worth noting that cardiovascular factors, physical fitness, and diet contribute to the risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's. These are not the greatest risk factors (as you might have guessed, age is the greatest risk factor), but these can be managed if you are motivated to do so -- in fact, getting a new body should be a fairly effective way of managing cardiovascular fitness.
You also add additional medical issues that come up with transplantation. Likely you won't get all nerves to be perfectly lined up.
I am sure there would be a market. And if someguy just showed up and said "Hey, look, I can do brain transplants, this is how it works, ain't it great?", everyone would go Yeah! That's great! Huzzah!
But the issue is with two words in the (grand)+parent post: "high priority". Given limited resources, are brain transplants what people should be working on?
Why are USA and Brazil higher than China and Europe? Is something different about Western Hemisphere? Indian curses or something.
I suspect that China underreports the prevalence ("My uncle Xi who lives in a remote village became a bit strange as he got old, but it's OK, there is no need to take him to a doctor in the city..."), but I have no idea why Europe is different from US/Brazil. I think it would be easy to google up more data if you want to explore this further.