I’m a 19-year-old Terminal Patient. Medical Brain Preservation Should not be Difficult to Discuss or Adopt
I think the future is bright and that humanity as a whole trends toward progress and innovation. Like many others of my generation, I grew up knowing that we face plenty of challenges in the near future, from environmental collapse and the rise of artificial intelligence to ongoing persecution and suffering. A reality where society fails to address all of these problems would be unacceptable to the vast majority of people on this planet. Humanity has every reason to unite and overcome these challenges, striving to become an enduring spacefaring civilization. It should not be controversial to suggest that among the legitimate possibilities of the distant future is a technology to reverse death by scanning and emulating the consciousness of a preserved brain.
What I and others in the brain preservation movement are asking is for humanity to prepare for the potential realization of mind uploading technology by establishing an end-of-life brain preservation procedure today that can be provided by medical institutions across the globe.
I know from personal experience that the desire for this option can be very strong. Just over two years ago, I was a high school senior, robotics team member, and aspiring aerospace engineer. My excitement after I was accepted to Purdue University, one of my top choices, was overshadowed in a matter of days by an unexpected cancer diagnosis. After a brief recovery allowed me to attend my first year of college, my cancer relapsed and became terminal. If my disease progresses as expected, I will be dead within five years, among the countless people whose futures are eliminated by childhood cancer. Despite its incredible uncertainty, I consider brain preservation a chance to save my future.
The desire for brain preservation is not commonly heard of within the neuroscience and medical communities, where it is often considered laughable at best and dangerous at worst. Despite potentially groundbreaking progress, the stigma surrounding brain preservation has made public discussion about it incredibly difficult.
Brain preservation was abandoned early on and never reconsidered by the scientific community, leaving the space for unregulated private companies to take over instead. It pains me to know that thousands who have been forced to look outside the medical system for brain preservation are signing up for companies that operate in the clear absence of medical accountability, ignore techniques that modern neuroscience suggests would be vastly superior, and are often burdened by legal restrictions that damage preservation quality.
An opportunity exists today for the neuroscience community to assume their roles as relevant professionals and examine the newly invented brain banking technique, aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation (ASC). One of their colleagues and co-founder of the Brain Preservation Foundation, Dr. Kenneth Hayworth, has publicly argued for developing ASC into a medical procedure based on the possibility of future revival via brain scanning and mind uploading. Below is a quote I obtained from him to clarify his scientific argument:
The essential claim is that ASC preserves the brain’s connectivity as well as the ultrastructural and molecular features that modern neuroscience theories suggest encode long-term memory. Despite its extraordinary implications, this claim seems straightforward to check given that the ASC protocol was openly published in the scientific literature (McIntyre & Fahy 2018) and given the extensive literature on aldehyde fixation of biomolecules (reviewed in McKenzie 2019). I believe it is the responsibility of the neuroscience community to publicly address this claim and reject or confirm it on clear scientific grounds.
Barring a clear reason to reject this possibility, or the realization of a better preservation method, this technique should be developed and legalized as an end-of-life medical option. While modern neuroscience cannot provide a magical answer to what the final outcome of preservation will be, its input is necessary to ensure that the best possible technique is understood well enough to be performed in hospitals and not back alley cryonics facilities. Many terminal patients like me have a fierce desire for an end-of-life procedure that may result in an otherwise impossible future for ourselves. It should not be a difficult decision for the scientific and medical communities to ensure that this final wish is acknowledged and supported rather than denied.
References
McIntyre, R. L., & Fahy, G. M. (2015). Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation. Cryobiology, 71(3), 448-458. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001122401500245X
McKenzie, A. (2019). Glutaraldehyde: A review of its fixative effects on nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates. https://osf.io/8zd4e/
FYI, there is also discussion about this is at: https://www.reddit.com/r/cryonics/comments/llt91a/im_a_19yearold_terminal_patient_medical_brain/
No need to dis cryonics organizations, and frankly, they’re probably your best bet at this point. No doubt cheaper chemopreservation options are desirable as well.
Good luck.
Some people don’t like a best bet which is not open to independent verification.
Thank you for your response! Lack of medical accountability and support from the scientific community are shortcomings of cryonics that are unacceptable for many, including me. To address that, I think the neuroscience and medical establishment should start supporting and developing brain preservation in a hospital setting today. These shortcomings prevented me from choosing cryonics, and I want people to have far better options at the end of their lives than I did.
The human race in general is just not very interested in these things. The fact that cryonics has been around for over fifty years, a period of time in which hundreds of millions of people died, and yet only a few hundred were cryonically frozen, demonstrates this. If cryonics had received some kind of official medical approval, perhaps more would have done it, but in this regard, the attitudes of the medical establishment are just a reflection of human attitudes in general.
So it’s hopeless expecting the neuroscience and medical establishment as a whole to do anything like this. The most you could hope for, is that a few people with solid credentials would endorse chemopreservation or would get involved in making it available to those who want it.
“Oregon cryonics” (not affiliated) suggests chemical brain preservation for 1000 USD. Maybe this information will be useful.
Thanks for the link. Their service is unlikely to help since their site shows no evidence that they use a peer-reviewed preservation protocol.
Try to verify it yourself? If you will be resurrected, it will be the proof. Anyway, there are two more options: indirect digital immortality, that is the idea that you will be reconstructed based on your traces. And so-called quantum or many world immortality. I have a peer-reviewed article on the last one. https://jetpress.org/v28.1/turchin.html
ASC won the Brain Preservation Prize in 2016. 5 years have passed since. It’s the most scientifically verified and peer-reviewed process of brain preservation till date. I understand that the mainstream medical community is too caught up in the stigma around brain preservation and future upload possibilities – to even discuss the subject (though this discussion is now viable with such refined preservation technology available).
What I don’t understand is why the myriad cryonics facilities already established (some for decades), do not want to adopt or even consider ASC as an option for brain preservation. Maybe they’re afraid it implies that their previous methods of preservation for earlier patients would be viewed as ineffective if they adopt new technology. But the point it, new tech can’t simply be ignored because it shows marked improvements over existing tech. Nevertheless, with decades and even centuries of time and scientific progress, it may eventually be that older methods of cryopreservation also lead to eventual revival. But ASC should definitely bear fruit earlier than existing methods of cryopreservation, simply due to to ease of scanning, upload, and emulation.
I agree with you, cryonics has some others disavantages like the cost is high, they don’t have a group that regularizes everything like the brainpreservation, they don’t join with other and share knowledge, they are kinda greedy because even been a non lucrative organization they have the hope to revive the dead body themselves like alcor alone and become rich within. I mean what your thoughts now in 2023 about this. I am a terminal patient too so i am seeking all the knowledge i can and trying become friends with peoople in this immortality camp while i am still alive, i have like 2 years of live or so.
Seems like an inevitable future state assuming humans and technology advancements continue to exist. To be honest, I don’t think most humans would believe that it is possible until they see undeniable evidence. For example, a preserved mouse brain is “revived” and somehow demonstrates memories that were obtained prior to preservation. I suspect that something like that is way off, so it will likely remain sci-if to most folks today.