Cryonics  

The Brain Preservation Foundation’s (BPF) Small Mammal Prize has officially been won. A team has discovered a way to preserve the delicate neural circuits of an intact rabbit brain for extremely long-­term storage using a combination of chemical fixation and cryogenic cooling. The prize represents an important prerequisite milestone towards the development of a robust memory preservation protocol for humans.

Over the last two decades cryonics researchers have made progress eliminating problems like ice formation in frozen tisssue using a technology from mainstream cryobiology called vitrification.

Vitrification uses high concentrations of cryoprotectants that allow tissue to solidify during cooling without the formation of ice crystals. When optimally applied, vitrification eliminates damage to cell structures caused by ice formation and has been shown compatible with recovery of biological functioning in small slices of isolated brain tissue.

However, when applied to whole brains, limitations in diffusibility lead to dramatic shrinkage of the brain’s tissue. Electron microscope images of such brains show dramatic distortions to the delicate neural circuits, and recovery of biological function in whole brains or animals remains far out of reach.

Such difficulties have led a new generation of researchers to focus on a more achievable and demonstrable goal –preservation of brain structure only, without concern for later biological viability. They focus on demonstrating preservation of the delicate pattern of synaptic connections, or the connectome, which neuroscience contends encodes a person’s memory and identity. Instead of biological revival, these new researchers often envision a future “synthetic revival” comprising nanometer-scale scanning of the preserved brain to serve as the basis for mind uploading.

Now a team from 21st Century Medicine, spearheaded by recent MIT graduate Robert McIntyre, has discovered a way to preserve the delicate neural circuits of an intact rabbit brain for extremely long­term storage using a combination of chemical fixation and cryogenic cooling.

Proof of this accomplishment, and the full “Aldehyde ­Stabilized Cryopreservation” protocol, was recently published in the journal Cryobiology and has been independently verified by the Brain Preservation Foundation through extensive electron microscopic examination. This answers a challenge issued to the scientific and cryonics communities five years ago by the BPF, and carries an award of $26,735.

Kenneth Hayworth, President of the Brain Preservation Foundation and Michael Shermer, member of BPF advisory board witnessed the full Aldehyde Stabilized Cryopreservation surgical procedure performed on this rabbit at the laboratories of 21CM under the direction of 21CM lead researcher Robert McIntyre in September last year.

"Every neuron and synapse looks beautifully preserved across the entire brain. Simply amazing given that I held in my hand this very same brain when it was vitrified glassy solid… This is not your father’s cryonics."

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The procedure included the live rabbit’s carotid arteries being perfused with glutaraldehyde and subsequent perfusion with cryoprotectant agent (CPA). Hayworth witnessed this rabbit brain being put in -135oC storage, removal from storage the following day (verifying that it had vitrified solid), and witnessed all subsequent tissue processing steps involved in the evaluation process.

“​Every neuron and synapse looks beautifully preserved across the entire brain. Simply amazing given that I held in my hand this very same brain when it was vitrified glassy solid… This is not your father’s cryonics,” stated Hayworth.

The winning team is focused now on the final Large Mammal phase of the contest which requires an intact pig brain to be preserved with similar fidelity in a manner that could be directly adapted to terminal patients in a hospital setting. The 21st Century Medicine team has recently submitted to the BPF such a preserved pig brain for official evaluation. Lead researcher Robert McIntyre has started a company, Nectome to further develop this method.

This result directly answers a main skeptical and scientific criticism against cryonics –that it does not provably preserve the delicate synaptic circuitry of the brain. As such, this research sets the stage for renewed interest within the scientific community, and offers a potential challenge to medical researchers to develop a human surgical procedure based on these successful animal experiments.

SOURCE  The Brain Preservation Foundation

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 Brain Preservation  

Dr. Ken Hayworth – a proponent of the idea of brain preservation – wants to move the debate around brain preservation beyond ideology and towards measurable scientific milestones.

Would you have your brain preserved? Do you believe your brain is the essence of you? To Dr. Ken Hayworth, the answer is an emphatic, “Yes.” He is currently developing machines and techniques to map brain tissue at the nanometer scale - the key to encoding our individual identities.

“I wish it were possible, from this instance, to invent a method of embalming drowned persons, in such a manner that they might be recalled to life at any period, however distant; for having a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years hence, I should prefer to an ordinary death, the being immersed in a cask of Madeira wine, with a few friends, until that time, then to be recalled to life by the solar warmth of my dear country. But since, in all probability, we live in an age too early, and too near the infancy of science, to see such an art brought in our time to its perfection, I must, for the present, content myself with the treat…of the resurrection of a fowl or a turkey-cock.”

- Ben Franklin, Observations on the Generally Prevailing Doctrines on Life and Death

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Often individuals’ opinions on the quality of current preservation methods are suspiciously well aligned with whether or not they think the whole ‘life after death’ thing sounds like a good idea. Is the field legitimate science, pseudo-science, or the domain of hucksters? Hayworth – a proponent of the idea of brain preservation – wants to move the debate around brain preservation beyond ideology and towards measurable scientific milestones.

A self-described transhumanist and President of the Brain Preservation Foundation, Hayworth’s goal is to perfect existing preservation techniques, like cryonics, as well as explore and push evolving opportunities to effect a change on the status quo.

"I really expect that brain preservation is a solvable problem, and it will be solved within the next decade," states Hayworth.  Also, he believes that more and more neuroscience evidence will convince skeptics, that the brain, and the billions of neurosynaptic connections—the connectome—is who we really are.

"I really expect that brain preservation is a solvable problem, and it will be solved within the next decade."

Currently there is no brain preservation option that offers systematic, scientific evidence as to how much human brain tissue is actually preserved when undergoing today’s experimental preservation methods.

Hayworth believes we can achieve his vision of preserving an entire human brain at an accepted and proven standard within the next decade. If Hayworth is right, is there a countdown to immortality?

The film above, is the first short film in  Ken Hayworth series on the Galactic Public Archives YouTube channel.

SOURCE  Galactic Public Archives

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 Connectomics  

Currently there are two methods on the table for preserving a brain so that it may be reanimated, or uploaded in the future. Alcor has been cryopreserving people for 40 years, while the techniques for bringing back frozen flesh, and more importantly neural pathways, are slowly developed. Now connectomics research has introduced chemical brain preservation as a method, albeit destructive, that may someday allow a brain to be brought back to 'life'.

S ebastian Seung may seem like an unlikely person to visit and talk at the Alcor Conference.  The computational neuroscientist, and author of Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are, did just that though last year. Specifically, Seung addressed some of the points and criticisms of the last two chapters of the book, which explore more of the transhumanist areas of connectomics research, including how cryonics may not save a person's brain (see video above).

Advances in neuroscience today strongly suggest that appropriately preserved brains will contain our memories, identity, and consciousness, and therefore preservation technology, when it arrives, will make such brains available for future reading of memories, or full revival if desired.

According to Seung, if the connectome is to be preserved, with the gossamer thin strands of neural connnections, that measure end-to-end into the millions of miles, cryopreservation will not work. Seung in his talk does not ever say these words exactly, but does ask the audience to consider what he is saying, by going through the steps that he, and other connectomics researchers like Ken Hayworth use.

Image Source: Brain Preservation Foundation

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Seung and Hayworth use the technology of chemical brain preservation to explore connectomes. Unlike the freezing method of cyronics used at Alcor, chemical brain preservation essentially kills the cells it preserves. Shortly before or moments after death, a scientists will start the process of emergency glutaraldehyde perfusion (EGP) for protein fixation (a kind of advanced embalming process).  

"The human race is on a beeline to mind uploading: We will preserve a brain, slice it up, simulate it on a computer, and hook it up to a robot body," says Hayworth.

At Alcor, many of the members want eventually to return to life in their own bodies, and so the methods of freezing the body (or just the head) at death makes sense.  They do not necessarily want to return as a 'brain in a box' upload, that seems to be the de facto outcome of the chemical brain preservation route.

In another talk at the same conference, Twenty-First Century Medicine cryobiologist Gregory Fahy took aim at the chemical brain preservation researchers (see image below).  Showing his work on advancing cryonics, Fahy says:

All of a sudden something scary happens.  People like Ken Hayworth come along and Sebastian Seung and John Smart wondering if maybe cryopreservation is all wrong - it's not the right way to go at all.  It would be much better too have your brain perfused with gluteraldehyde, then embedded in plastic and then cut into tiny little pieces and bombarded with electron beams.  I don't know but, I have some reservations about my brain being destroyed as a way of preserving it.

Fahy is counting on future nanomedicine to reanimate cryopreserved people.  He prefers what he calls the 'classical' cryopreservation approach.

Image Source: Anders Sandberg

To help decide whether cryonics or chemical brain preservation (or both, or neither) is a feasible method for an eventual uploading/immortality technology, Seung is a judge for the Brain Preservation Foundation's prize.  The Brain Preservation Foundation was started by Hayworth as an organization to advance the use and techniques of chemical brain preservation and long term storage.  The Prize seeks the development of an inexpensive and reliable hospital surgical procedure which verifiably preserves the structural connectivity of 99.9% of the synapses in a human brain if administered rapidly after biological death.

There are currently two competitors for the Brain Preservation Foundation prize.

Seung undoubtedly retains a lingering fascination with the possibility of an intersection between connectomics and transhumanism. At a TED talk he gave, he commented that connectomics might eventually put to the test whether a technology like cryonics will eventually be feasible.  



SOURCE  Alcor Cryonics

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 Brain Uploading  

Adam Ford recently uploaded an in depth interview in two parts with Dr. Ken Hayworth. Hayworth is the connectomics pioneer behind the innovative mouse brain connectome observatory. He is also the founding president of the Brain Preservation Foundation.

Recently Adam Ford uploaded an in depth interview in two parts with Dr. Ken Hayworth.  Hayworth is the connectomics pioneer behind the innovative mouse brain connectome observatory.  He is also the founding president of the Brain Preservation Foundation.

Currently, Hayworth is continuing his neuroscience research as a senior scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Farm Research Campus.

Neuroscientists today can preserve small volumes of animal brain tissue immediately after death with incredible precision -- the features and structure of every synapse within these volumes is well-protected down to the nanometer scale, using an inexpensive, room-temperature process of chemical fixation and plastic embedding, or "plastination."

The image above is an example of plastination and local circuit tracing, occurring in leading neuroscience labs around the world today. This work immediately raises the question:

"Can the standard chemical fixation and plastic embedding technique used for electron microscopic investigation of brain circuitry be adapted to preserve the synaptic connectivity of an entire human brain?"

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According to Hayworth, This is a well-defined scientific question, and we now have the tools necessary to answer this question definitively.  Moreover, his Brain Preservation Foundation has put up a $100,000 prize for the technology that is able to make this work.

"The human race is on a beeline to mind uploading: We will preserve a brain, slice it up, simulate it on a computer, and hook it up to a robot body," says Hayworth.

Hayworth proposes a protocol where when a patent in hospital has run out of medican options, he or she will be placed under anesthesia, then a cocktail of toxic chemicals will be perfused through their vascular system, fixing every protein and lipid in their brain into place, preventing any decay, and causing instantaneous death.  

This method of plastination differs from the cryonics procedure offered by organizations such as Alcor, but Hayworth does not suggest at this stage one method is head and shoulders above the other.  "Competition in science is healthy," he says.

After death through the plastination process, the patient's brain will be injected with heavy-metal staining solutions to make the cell membranes visible under a microscope. All of the water will then be drained from his brain and spinal cord, replaced by pure plastic resin.

With this method, every neuron and synapse in his central nervous system will be protected down to the nanometer level, Hayworth says, “the most perfectly preserved fossil imaginable.”

Using a ultramicrotome, a plastic-embedded preserved brain will eventually be cut into strips, and then imaged in an electron microscope. The physical brain can then be destroyed, but in its place will be a precise map of the patient's connectome.

Hayworth states that this method, unlike the potential of cryonics will mean that the uploaded brain will not be re-established in the patient's own body (presumably cleared of all disease and aging signs).  Rather, he suggests that the process will be better suited for robotic replacement of the body, or a substate independant mind.  

In 100 years or so, Hayworth suggests, scientists will be able to determine the function of each neuron and synapse and build a complete computer simulation of the mind bases on the wiring diagram connectome collected. 

“This isn’t cryonics, where maybe you have a .001 percent chance of surviving,” he said. “We’ve got a good scientific case for brain preservation and mind uploading.”

In the lenghty interview embedded below, Ford and Hayworth also cover the topics of artificial intelligence, the Singularity, President Obama's BRAIN project, the work of Henry Markram and other aspects of mind uploading.  

SOURCE  Adam Ford

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