Abstract
Very low temperatures create conditions that can preserve tissue for centuries, possibly including the neurological basis of the human mind. Through a process called vitrification, brain tissue can be cooled to cryogenic temperatures without ice formation. Damage associated with this process is theoretically reversible in the same sense that rejuvenation is theoretically possible by specific foreseeable technology. Injury to the brain due to stopped blood flow is now known to result from a complex series of processes that take much longer to run to completion than the 6 min limit of ordinary resuscitation technology. Reperfusion beyond the 6 min limit primarily damages blood vessels rather than brain tissue. Apoptosis of neurons takes many hours. This creates a window of opportunity between legal death and irretrievable loss of life for human and animal subjects for cryopreservation with possibility of future resuscitation. Under ideal conditions, the time interval between onset of clinical death and beginning of cryonics procedures can be reduced to less than 1 min, but much longer delays could also be compatible with ultimate survival. Although the evidence that cryonics may work is indirect, the application of indirect evidence is essential in many areas of science. If complex changes due to aging are reversible at some future date, then similarly complex changes due to stopped blood flow and cryopreservation may also be reversible, with life-saving results for anyone with medical needs that exceed current capabilities.
Highlights
CRYONICS IS THE PRACTICE OF preserving humans and animals at cryogenic temperatures in the hope that future science can restore them to a healthy living condition as well as rejuvenate them
Not an event, and the process takes longer than is commonly believed; (4) damage associated with low temperature preservation and clinical death that is not reversible today is theoretically reversible in the future
In 1976 Peter Safar showed that dogs could be subjected to 12 min of cardiac arrest without neurological damage by the use of elevated arterial pressure, norepinephrine, heparin, and hemodilution with dextran 40.30 Over a decade later, an experiment showed that spontaneous EEG activity returned in 50% of cats subjected to 1 h of global cerebral ischemia followed by reperfusion and treatment with norepinephrine, heparin, insulin, and acidosis buffers
Summary
CRYONICS IS THE PRACTICE OF preserving humans and animals at cryogenic temperatures in the hope that future science can restore them to a healthy living condition as well as rejuvenate them. Enough extracellular ice will form to crush cells in the remaining unfrozen channels.[12] Whether mechanical crushing or toxic electrolytes is the cause of damage following ice formation during slow cooling remains a subject of debate among cryobiologists.[15] Cryonics practice, is based on efforts to reduce or eliminate freezing. Neurons in the CA1 sector of the hippocampus are much more vulnerable to becoming necrotic following ischemia than neurons elsewhere in the brain.[40] But cell death in the hippocampus following ischemia can be significantly reduced by the use of caspase inhibitors that arrest the apoptotic process.[41] Caspase inhibitors have been used to block apoptosis in cryopreserved hematopoietic cells re-warmed from cryogenic temperatures.[42] Bag-1 protein, which binds pro-apoptotic members of the Bcl-2 protein family, has demonstrated powerful anti-apoptotic effects on rat livers subjected to ischemia/reperfusion injury.[43]. The non-binary character of consciousness would become evident in revived cryonics subjects whose brains had been partially destroyed and repaired, resulting in partial amnesia and partial restoration of original identity
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