BPF in the News – The Brain Preservation Foundation

BPF in the News

BBC Radio Interview

Selected quote:

Host: Just three months ago a team of scientists in California managed to use a chemical fixative to protect the brain of a pig so that it could be cryogenically frozen without being damaged. With this technique, the fixative chemical means that it is impossible to ever biologically revive the brain…

Kenneth Hayworth: “That’s not the point. The entire idea behind this is that you preserved the brain as well as you can today so that perhaps one hundred years in the future when we have the ability to scan that brain, map out all of its connectivity, and put that into a computer simulation, that that person’s mind will be uploaded at that point into that computer simulation.”

Seeker YouTube Interview

Selected quote:

Host: “So how close are we to downloading the human brain?”

Kenneth Hayworth: “We’re nowhere close. We can’t even download a fruit fly. We can image small pieces of brain tissue or small organisms’ brains, but we don’t know enough about how the nervous system works in order to interpret those images and create a simulation.”

David Eagleman: “With the technologies we have right now we’re nowhere close. But the road seems clear enough to get there unless there is some giant surprise that we run into, it seems like each year as the technology gets better and better, we get higher and higher resolution on what’s going on, it’s a clear path to get there.”

CBC Interview

Selected quote:

“Preserving a brain is not that difficult. Having said that, the revival part is incredibly difficult, just insanely, insanely difficult.” – Kenneth Hayworth

Press coverage of announced winning of the Large Mammal Brain Preservation Prize:

MIT Technology Review

Selected quote: “[S]tarting several years ago, McIntyre, then working with cryobiologist Greg Fahy at a company named 21st Century Medicine, developed a different method, which combines embalming with cryonics. It proved effective at preserving an entire brain to the nanometer level, including the connectome—the web of synapses that connect neurons. A connectome map could be the basis for re-creating a particular person’s consciousness, believes Ken Hayworth, a neuroscientist who is president of the Brain Preservation Foundation—the organization that, on March 13, recognized McIntyre and Fahy’s work with the prize for preserving the pig brain.” [link to article]

NewsWeek

Selected quote: “[B]eing able to preserve the brain’s connectome may, one day, allow for the future digital revival of the mind… “A growing number of scientists and technologists believe that future technology may be capable of scanning a preserved brain’s connectome and using it as the basis for constructing a whole brain emulation, thereby uploading that person’s mind into a computer controlling a robotic, virtual, or synthetic body,” a BPF statement on the awarding of the prize read.” [link to article]

The Gaurdian

Selected quote: “[A] complete pig’s brain has been successfully treated, frozen, rewarmed and found to have its neural connections still intact. This achievement, by the cryobiology research company 21st Century Medicine (21CM), has just won the final phase of the Brain Preservation Foundation’s prize – a prize that demanded all of a brain’s synaptic connections be preserved in a way that allowed for centuries-long storage of the entire information content of a whole large mammal’s brain…
A human brain treated this way could never be brought back to life. Yet all its preserved information could potentially be uploaded into an artificial or virtual body indistinguishable from the previously living one – like “uploading a person’s mind” after a long wait. Would this then be “you”?” [link to article]

Gizmodo

Selected quote: “We’re still a long way from uploading our brains into a computer (something that may never happen), but if it ever becomes a reality, we may look back on pioneering efforts such as these. As the BPF stated in an accompanying press release, this brain preservation technique, called Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation (ASC), would enable patients—that is, preserved brains in cryostorage—to “safely wait out those centuries” required to develop mind-uploading technologies.” [link to article]

Press coverage of announced winning of the Small Mammal Brain Preservation Prize:

Selected quote: ” Kenneth Hayworth, president of the Brain Preservation Foundation, has helped verify that Fahy and McIntyre’s technique works, but he emphasises that the defrosted rabbit brain was not functional. “That was never the point,” he says. “The point was to demonstrate that the structure of the delicate synaptic circuitry of the brain could be preserved over indefinite time spans.” … “The prizewinning technique is totally different from the one that [current cryonics service organizations] use,” says Hayworth. “This is only the first step in a long process of serious research and experimentation that might eventually prove that medical application to human patients is warranted.” “ [link to article]

Scientific American

Selected quote: ” I witnessed the infusion of a rabbit brain through its carotid arteries with a fixative agent called glutaraldehyde, which binds proteins together into a solid gel. The brain was [further perfused with] ethylene glycol, a cryoprotective agent eliminating ice formation and allowing safe storage at −130 degrees C as a glasslike, inert solid. At that temperature, chemical reactions are so attenuated that it could be stored for millennia… The winning rabbit brain was in fact the one that this author witnessed while writing this article. “ -From Michael Shermer’s Skeptic column in SA [link to article]

Huffington Post

Selected quote: ” While the preserved brain was dead tissue, all of its synaptic connections — or the junctions of nerve cells — were maintained, Robert McIntyre, a scientist at company 21st Century Medicine who led the research, told The Huffington Post. “This research is a first because it works on whole brains and preserves all of the synaptic details,” he said. “Previous techniques, such as resin embedding, are only able to preserve detailed synaptic information in small brain slices.” ” [link to article]

Popular Science

Selected quote: ” Five years ago, a non-profit organization called the Brain Preservation Foundation (BPF) challenged the world’s neuroscience community to a tough task: to preserve a mouse brain (or a mammalian brain of equal size) for extreme long-term storage. All the neurons and synapses within it would have to remain intact and visible while viewed under a special electron microscope….McIntyre and his team figured out how to preserve the brain’s circuitry by using strong chemicals to [fix and cryoprotect] the neurons and synapses, and then chilling them to extremely cold temperatures. His technique, called “Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation”, was published this past December in the journal Cryobiology. ” [link to article]

Discovery News

Selected quote: ” Their approach is also the opposite of existing cryonic human-preservation services. The Foundation challenges neuroscientists to start with an effective animal model. The longterm goal: Rigorously demonstrate a surgical technique that can completely — and inexpensively — preserve a whole human brain for more than 100 years in a way that keeps neuronal processes and synaptic connections intact. Plus, you must use current electron microscopic imaging techniques.” ” [link to article]

Newsweek

Selected quote: ” “The brain was able to be sliced and viewed in an electron microscope which suggested that all the connections had been preserved,” Michael Cerullo, a psychiatrist at the Brain Preservation Foundation, tells Newsweek. “

Note this story was corrected after initial web publication in response to a BPF request to do so: “ Correction | The article originally stated that the brain had been recovered. It has been updated to clarify that the rabbit brain has so far only been preserved, not recovered. ” [link to article]

Tech Times

Selected quote: “A team of scientists successfully preserved a rabbit brain without damage. For the first time, the team demonstrated that it is possible to subject a complete mammalian brain into a long-term and almost perfect physical preservation …The ASC process keeps the brain’s synapses, cell membranes and intracellular structures complete and undamaged during preservation. The rabbit brain’s electron microscope images revealed that the neural circuits were preserved beautifully … Hayworth said the new research should result in a changed interest in cryonics.” [link to article]

Science Recorder

Selected quote: “This is a huge step for the field because it addresses one of the main criticisms about cryonics, which is that [traditional cryonics] cannot preserve the brain’s synaptic circuitry. While more work needs to be done, researchers say, the success of the ASC could ignite new interest in the field of cryogenics.” [link to article]