The 脑保存基金会 is an American non-profit organization founded in 2010 with the goal of promoting validated scientific research, knowledge, and technical services development in the field of whole human brain preservation for long-term static storage. We also work on the accessibility, affordability, and sustainability of brain preservation procedures and technology, and provide scientific and public education on topics such as the neural foundations of learning and memory, brain preservation, scanning techniques, and whole brain emulation (“mind uploading”).

A 21st Century Vision

Given recent advances in neuroscience, we believe brain preservation for individuals at the end of life can soon become a very affordable, accessible, valuable, sustainable, and socially beneficial bridge to living on, in the better future we are all trying to build today, with all of their friends and loved ones who make the same personal choice. We are in no way advocating that this is a choice everyone might want to make. How we die is a deeply personal choice of belief and action. We all deserve the greatest freedom and respect in making that choice, as long as we do not obviously harm others. Nevertheless, we believe that there are good grounds for making the preservation choice today. History shows that humanity has been continually striving to improve our capabilities, often in only partly conscious ways. Our deep prosociality, and our drive to advance our personal and collective freedoms, abilities, empathy, ethics, and vision, are all essential features of humanity, in our view. Though we constantly create new problems for ourselves, we are always creating new solutions as well, though the latter can often be harder to see and acknowledge in our complex world. We believe it is logical to expect that a world with the science and technology to revive us will be also a world with more and much better regulated human rights, abilities, freedoms, and sustainability. It is likely to be a world where we may choose to be like children again in various aspects of our bodies and minds, able to grow and change. Alternatively, some of us may choose to change very little in that future world, just as humanity makes both choices today. It is also reasonable to expect that we will bring unique and valuable experiences, wisdom, goals, and personalities from our current life into our future life. We believe no future society, or its technologies, will ever be “Godlike”–either omniscient or omnipotent. If our universe and its physics continues as we understand it today, then future society will always improved by better collective memory and diversity, just like society today. Finally, making brain preservation available to all who might want it at the end of life may measurably change our personal and societal values and visions today, making them more adventurous, future, science, sustainability, progress, justice, and community oriented. Getting more of us to see the value of brain preservation in today’s world, with all its unknowns and challenges, won’t be easy, but all revolutions start with individual choices.  We hope you’ll seriously consider the implications and desirability of expanding access to and affordability of this end-of-life choice, for yourself and your loved ones. If you want more on the personal and societal value of this vision, see our essay, Overcoming Objections to Brain Preservation, and let us know what you think.

How You Can Help Us

If you find our mission persuasive, please Sign Our Petition for Global Access to High-Quality Brain Preservation at Change.org. We have 890 signatures as of Jan 1, 2024, and would love to get to 1,000 signatures next. Feel free to add your public comments as well, sharing what the brain preservation choice currently means to you, and why you’d like to see it become medically supervised, accessible and affordable for anyone as an end-of-life option. Want to do more? See our page of suggestions on 你能帮什么忙.

Quick Links to Recent Content

神经科学进取奖：征集提名

脑保存基金会的 YouTube 视频纪录片系列

• 第1集 —— 开场白
• 第2集 —— 重新定义现状
• 第3集 —— 合理的科学异议
• 第4集 —— 更广泛的适用性
• 第5集 —— 长期争论
• 第6集 —— 社会使命
• 第7集 —— 正确地保存
• 第8集 —— 这将如何运作？

Neuroscience of Learning and Memory Journal Club Videos (YouTube)

• 神经科学期刊俱乐部 Rossi 等人 2020年
• 神经科学期刊俱乐部 El-Boustani 等人 2018年
• 神经科学期刊俱乐部 Choi 等人 2018年
• 神经科学期刊俱乐部 Kasai 等人 2003年
• 神经科学期刊俱乐部 Abdou 等人 2018年

Journal Quotes on the Synaptic Encoding of Memory

新闻稿：醛稳定低温保存赢下了脑保奖的最后阶段

Kenneth Hayworth 关于醛稳定低温保存的支持信 （以及“下一步行动”注意事项）

玻璃化连接组的自我：将醛稳定低温保存发展为医疗程序的一个实例 （短文）

猪奖评估图像 （3D电子显微和大体解剖图）

Introduction

The 亚历山大图书馆，建于公元前三世纪，是古时科学和学术的中心。它收集了数以万计的卷轴，其中包含了来之不易的古代世界知识和人类历史的无价宝藏。但是随着 图书馆的毁坏 几乎所有这些知识都遗失了。“亚历山大图书馆的焚毁”已经成为对独一无二的知识肆无忌惮的破坏的隐喻，这是对原作者和后代不可原谅的侮辱。

考虑到当今对数字存档的痴迷，我们可能会认为后代会感谢我们的精心保护。 但实际上，当他们回顾21^st 世纪初，他们更有可能将其视为“亚历山大图书馆的又一次焚毁!”

要理解为什么，请考虑一下神经科学在最近十年取得了多大的进步，然后设想从现在起几个世纪后的世界。当今的神经科学理论把我们领入了 深度学习神经网络 使我们的应用能够理解语音，识别面部，甚至 驾驶自动汽车。神经科学成像技术正准备绘制整个 昆虫 和 小型哺乳动物 的大脑，在纳米尺度上，使用的是 极速电子显微镜，近期目标是读取记忆。我们正在遗传学，分子生物学，生物技术，显微术，系统生物学，数据科学和其它领域中使用功能强大的新工具，以最终揭示 表观遗传, 细胞外，以及 突触变化的集合 ，其构成了记忆的分子基础。2014年 Kavli神经科学奖 由三位发现专门用于记忆和认知的脑部网络的神经科学家获得。2016年的 脑奖 由三位神经科学家获得，他们解释了 长时程增强的分子机制，哺乳动物脑部储存和维持终身记忆的关键之一。

如果世界继续以这种加速步伐前进，完全有理由期望在几百年后，我们将拥有一门完整的关于 大脑如何产生思想的学科，并且拥有能够定期 上传记忆和思想的技术能力。这将是一个技术先进性和物质繁荣度远超出当今的我们的世界，正如我们远超古希腊人一样。未来世界的公民将战胜疾病和死亡，并克服无数其它生物学上的限制。他们将清楚地理解当今的神经科学教科书试图传达的内容：意识是计算性的，一个人独有的记忆和人格被编码在神经元之间的物理联系模式中。

从这个有利的角度出发，子孙后代会问：

Brief History

In 2010, we established the Brain Preservation Foundation to evaluate this perspective. We asked:

• “Is it possible to reliably and affordably preserve the 3D ultrastructure and synaptic connectivity of the human brain at death for >100 years?”
• “How close are current methods (cryonics and others) to offering a consistent high-quality preservation throughout the human brain?”
• “Can we find alternative brain preservation methods stemming from modern neuroscience research?”

We reasoned that one of the best ways to definitively answer these questions was to offer a $100,000 挑战奖 for the first team that could demonstrate a reliable preservation protocol for brain-wide 3D ultrastructure and synaptic connectivity, for both small animal and large animal brains.

脑保奖：一个对人体冷冻学家的挑战，一个对科学家的挑战

Two world-class research labs, 21^st 世纪医学 in California and Shawn Mikula 实验室 at the Max Planck Institute, entered into our prize competition.

21^st 世纪医学（21CM），一个领先的低温生物学研究实验室，是测试最先进的人体冷冻技术如何保存脑部超微结构的理想选择。他们的成果的摘要在我们的 21CM低温保存页面。当以可验证地保留突触结构为目标进行判断时，该研究揭示了当前人体冷冻技术方案的局限性。因此，21CM 发明了一种新的脑保存方案，称为“醛稳定低温保存”，它似乎完全克服了这些限制。他们的成果的摘要在我们的 醛稳定低温保存页面.

Separately, Shawn Mikula’s laboratory not only worked out how to preserve a whole mouse brain at the ultrastructure level, but they did so in a way that makes it directly compatible with today’s automated scanning and imaging techniques, using high-speed 3D electron microcopy. Our evaluation results of a whole brain entry he sent us can be found on our Mikula评估页面.

It now seems a reasonable proposition to us that reliable, inexpensive, and scientifically proven procedures for high-quality brain preservation could be made available, relatively soon, in hospitals, hospices, and homes around the world, to all terminal patients that might desire it as an end-of-life option for themselves and their loved ones.

Would anyone really elect to undergo such a brain preservation procedure? For at least a small minority of the population the answer is yes. Since its inception, the Brain Preservation Foundation has attracted a diverse group of volunteers, advisors, and donors many of which not only support the development of such technology but hope that the option will be available to them when they need it. Surveys today suggest that a significant percentage of the population (anywhere from 1 to 20%) would desire the brain preservation option for themselves and their loved ones at the end of life, whether or not they actually engage in such preservation.

Cryonics has never attracted significant numbers despite decades of trying, but one of the many historical blocks to considering cryonics is that the cryonics services providers have never been able to establish to the neuroscientist community that their vitrification procedures reliably preserve the delicate 3D ultrastructure and synaptic connectivity throughout the brains of their patients. This new “field” of scientifically-verified brain preservation emerging today may finally remove this objection. Recovery of non-trivial memories, in computer emulation, from preserved and scanned brains in complex animals (mice, etc.) may also change the views of many who are unsure of the future value of this procedure for human beings.

回到我们的类比： Each of us are the scrolls in today’s Library of Alexandria. Each of us has spent decades accumulating our unique memories and honing our unique identity. Our memories and personality weave the thread of our life together with the lives of our loved ones and, in turn, with the rest of humanity. As fragile biological creatures, we have learned to accept that we all age and die, and with death our particular thread is ripped out of the tapestry of humanity – our scroll is set ablaze.

With the ever quickening pace of science and technology more of us are realizing that traditional death many not be a necessary part of the human condition forever. Our great-grandchildren may not know traditional death at all; ours may actually be one of the last generations to cower under its ancient shadow. In our view, the perfection of brain preservation technology represents today’s most reasonable chance at reaching that future world.

Please join us in advocating for more research into brain preservation techniques, and if and when they are reasonably validated to have informational value value for future society, in urging the medical community to supervise and implement elective brain preservation procedures, in hospitals, hospices, and homes around the world, for all who might want this option at the end of their lives.

BPF 针对科学、医学、法律、政府专员和公众的三个主题的立场声明  

1. 脑部保存服务。 BPF is a nonprofit research organization, and our mission is to promote scientific research and services development of whole brain preservation for long-term static storage. This is presently very important for scientific and medical brain banking and connectomics research. If useful information (non-trivial memories, at least) is validated to be contained in preserved animal brains, by a minority neuroscience consensus on relevant structural preservation and computer emulation, we will also advocate for services development for the general public, as an end-of-life option. To date, simple memories have been recovered from preserved animal brains. See AspirationalNeuroscience.org for papers. But recovery of non-trivial memories has not yet occurred yet, in our opinion. The BPF does not currently support the offering of ASC, or any other preservation method to human patients, and will not endorse any particular preservation services company, now or in the future. We hope that all preservation services companies continue to improve their procedures, publish them in open journals, and engage in periodic medical ethics and legal reviews of their contracts and consent processes.
2. 记忆保存。 Validation of preservation value for public use, in our opinion, requires making a case that such preservation will preserve non-trivial  memories, at least. Many neuroscientists would agree that preserving the connectome alone may not be sufficient to preserve memory. Aspects of what is called the synaptome (synaptic receptors and small molecules) and perhaps, the epigenome (molecular tags on neural DNA), may modulate human memory storage as well. We do not yet have a full understanding of how the many varieties of memory are stored in animal brains, so any opinion rendered today by anyone on that topic must be provisional. ASC, the technology that won our recent prizes, appears to well-preserve both the connectome and these small synaptic and nuclear features, as far as we know today. But discussion and consensus with respect to ASC’s potential adequacy (or not) for preserving useful human memories, among a respectably-sized community of neuroscientists, has not happened, to our knowledge. There is even less understanding and consensus with respect to related mental properties like personality, emotion and consciousness. Our affiliated neuroscience practitioner community, AspirationalNeuroscience.org, exists to engage with the neuroscientific community in exploration of this important open question. Until a minority professional consensus emerges around this question, validation of preservation’s value for human use has not occurred, in our opinion.
3. 可持续性，可负担性和可及性。 为了让BPF倡导公共服务的发展，我们还需要在公开刊物上提出一个合理的理由，即这些服务可以在环境方面可持续地提供，并使公众越来越能够获得且负担得起，这是一个社会公义的问题。保存和“上传”小动物连接组有资源成本，虽然这些模拟在今天还很不完整，但随着数字计算机的发展，这种成本已经呈指数级下降。人工智能、自动化以及库米定律允许的50年发展趋势，也让我们有理由相信，未来的复苏可能在环境方面尤其可持续。 还必须讨论公共服务的可负担性和可及性，如果保存的准确性和价值得到验证的话，我们希望尽我们有限的力量来推进这一讨论。目前，我们专注于验证，从我们的角度来看，该过程可能仍需要数年的时间。

We recognize that death is a deeply personal and emotional process, and that each of us comes to terms with it in our own unique way. Now that our first two Preservation Technology Prizes have been won, and at least one company is making plans to preserve brains in a way that at least a few neuroscientists expect may preserve memories, we believe the scientific, medical, legal, and government communities should begin discussing this topic. We should be asking what technical, medical, ethical, legal, and economic conditions will ensure that whole brain preservation services respect the wishes of those involved, and are appropriately regulated when public services are offered, in all free societies.

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