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Neuro ("Head Only") vs. Whole Body Suspension


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Poll: Given the Choice Between Neuropreservation (aka "head only") and Full Body cryonic suspension, which do you choose? (if you have strong feelings one way or the other, please say why below) (177 member(s) have cast votes)

Given the Choice Between Neuropreservation (aka "head only") and Full Body cryonic suspension, which do you choose? (if you have strong feelings one way or the other, please say why below)

  1. Neuropreservation ("Head Only") (62 votes [35.84%])

    Percentage of vote: 35.84%

  2. Full Body Preservation (90 votes [52.02%])

    Percentage of vote: 52.02%

  3. Undecided (21 votes [12.14%])

    Percentage of vote: 12.14%

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#121 bgwowk

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Posted 01 May 2009 - 06:49 PM

Thank you, it is good to have concrete elements.
- Tardigrades and C elegans: better than nothing but tiny (<2mm): not great to get the enthousiam of more people. I remember there was once a big animal (a lamantine?) that was frozen and defrozen within a few hours; the chemicals were too toxic to make it last longer, the physiology of the animal made it easier; does anyone know what i'm talking about?

No, but you may find these references interesting.

http://www.imminst.o...ryonics_letter/


I think that suspending someone that is about to die, until he or she can be revived and made in good health (if possible for hundreds of years ;-) is the what most people would understand by cryonics (and accept a little more, if it seemed technically quite ready). I'm not sure to understand whether it is "cryonics", "suspended animation" or both.


If you suspend someone in such a manner that you can revive them whenever you want, that's suspended animation. If you suspend someone in such a state that you can't get them back, and may be uncertain about whether they can be brought back, that's cryonics.

Even if you have a technology for suspended animation (which presently we don't), you can still practice cryonics. For example, suppose you lived in time when there was reversible suspended animation, but people could only be revived if their heart was stopped for less than 10 minutes. You have a patient whose heart has been stopped for 15 minutes. Nothing can be done. The patient is considered dead to the medicine of your time. Would you place the patient in suspended animation in anticipation that 10, 20, or 50 years in the future it may be possible to revive people whose heart has been stopped for 15 minutes? If you do, you are practicing cryonics.

If you think about it, it's very likely that on the long road to developing suspended animation, a time will come when the preservation technology is good enough to be reversible by future technology even though it can't be reversed in real time. Therefore if you wait until preservation technology is demonstrably reversible before using it, then there will in hindsight be a certain population of patients who could have been saved by using earlier preservation technologies, but weren't. A policy of not preserving anyone until preservation is demonstrably reversible guarantees that nobody will be preserved fruitlessly, but also guarantees that there will be some people who could have been saved, but weren't.

Edited by bgwowk, 01 May 2009 - 08:50 PM.


#122 kismet

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Posted 03 May 2009 - 08:35 PM

bgwowk, I do get your point, but advances and proofs of concept from cryobiology are still of some relevance. They inspire confidence, at least in me. I didn't know that metazoa or organs could be 'cryopreserved' so I was surprised when I read it the first time.
I think we're working on bridging the gap between current-day cryonics and suspended animation. The smaller the gap in the first place, the more confidence inspiring cryopreservation would be.

#123 VictorBjoerk

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Posted 03 May 2009 - 11:41 PM

Something I came to think about :)

Do you cryonicists value your bodies?

Do you think they are important because they are "your identity" or do you just consider them carriers of your brain? Do you think you would feel at home in some kind of artificial contraption?

One thing is sure, even without aging the human body isn't safe as long as you can eg slip in your bathroom and die.

Therefore I would happily move into a safer artificial body which doesn't require constant monitoring sometime in the future.

Edited by VictorBjoerk, 03 May 2009 - 11:42 PM.


#124 cyborgdreamer

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Posted 04 May 2009 - 12:52 AM

Also the arguments these scientists are having are approached from the wrong angle. I almost can't believe I have to school you in this. For one thing consciousness is ALREADY DISEMBODIED. Existing in this reality is a guarantee of immortality within this reality. You have existed at some point on the timeline, like your grandfather and great-grandfather and so on reaching back through time. They, like yourself, are momentary knots of energy that only need be given the right ingredients to return and interact at later points on this timeline of ours. The entire timeline itself is just an energy wave which is made of an infinite number of sub waves, including you and me, in an immense cosmic fractal. Consciousness is a component of reality. It is always there and like any component it can be applied in different areas. This is what explains ghosts. A ghost is an energy source that approximates a person's personality however it lacks the specific energy wavelengths to interact with us the way we expect, hence, the bizarreness of typical ghost behaviors such as footsteps, rattling dishes, and low whispers at night, almost as if the personality believes itself to be in a dream. The reasoning is actually quite simple if you ask me. There is no splitting of the consciousness like the scientists might imagine. There is ONE consciousness of yours. The human brain is just an extremely sophisticated receiver of this broadcast of consciousness. All of your sensations arise from the brain and its interaction with the body that carries it. The idea that you are special and need to survive and that death is bad is an evolutionary trick that is meant to compel the organism to perpetuate. Creating a new house for your consciousness after destroying your brain is in actuality creating a synthetic twin whose mannerisms are just like yours. That's it. Consciousness does not transfer. You can only access the consciousness.


What makes you believe this? Do you have scientific evidence or a philosophical argument or are you just making an assumption based on intuition?

Edited by cyborgdreamer, 04 May 2009 - 01:28 AM.


#125 cyborgdreamer

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Posted 04 May 2009 - 01:27 AM

Something I came to think about :)

Do you cryonicists value your bodies?

Do you think they are important because they are "your identity" or do you just consider them carriers of your brain? Do you think you would feel at home in some kind of artificial contraption?

One thing is sure, even without aging the human body isn't safe as long as you can eg slip in your bathroom and die.

Therefore I would happily move into a safer artificial body which doesn't require constant monitoring sometime in the future.


Although I certainly value my body, I'm not sure to what extent I consider it part of my identity. I would still be me if my mind were in a different body. And I agree that, if it were the safest option, would want to transfer to an artificial body though I'd still want it to look and feel like me. However, I think it would be safer (not to mention less creepy) to slowly modify oneself with nanomachines rather than risk a brain transplant, particularly if you were still alive when the technology developed.

#126 ranjo

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Posted 05 May 2009 - 07:06 AM

Something I came to think about :)

Do you cryonicists value your bodies?

Do you think they are important because they are "your identity" or do you just consider them carriers of your brain? Do you think you would feel at home in some kind of artificial contraption?

One thing is sure, even without aging the human body isn't safe as long as you can eg slip in your bathroom and die.

Therefore I would happily move into a safer artificial body which doesn't require constant monitoring sometime in the future.

Not a cryonicist yet, but I'll answer anyway. I think what is important is personal identity, not the body. If I was offered a new body that was superior to my current one I wouldn't hesitate to take the offer. However I don't simply consider it a carrier of my brain, but rather the interface by which I can interact with the world. The body is a great tool, but far from perfect. I'm saving up for neuro suspension since it's cheaper and presumably the vitrification process is less fatal, and I expect as much of my personal identity will be preserved. I would hate to be revived with a suboptimal body simply because I once chose to preserve it in the event it could come in useful. However I am a bit worried about the consequences of detaching the brain from the body. The brain is a highly complex adaptable system with an amazing number of connections to the human body, but since my brain has only ever been adapted to my body I wonder whether it will work as well with an artificial body. Does the brain itself even contain enough information to construct a suitable body that can communicate effectively with my brain? I certainly think so, but being a bit paranoid I also fear that it might not. I really hope cryonics companies start offering a plan where they store the brain and body separately. Then at least they could use my body as a rough template, or blueprint, for how my personal brain's communication protocol is structured.

#127 Heliotrope

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Posted 05 May 2009 - 09:19 AM

Something I came to think about :)

Do you cryonicists value your bodies?

Do you think they are important because they are "your identity" or do you just consider them carriers of your brain? Do you think you would feel at home in some kind of artificial contraption?

One thing is sure, even without aging the human body isn't safe as long as you can eg slip in your bathroom and die.

Therefore I would happily move into a safer artificial body which doesn't require constant monitoring sometime in the future.

Not a cryonicist yet, but I'll answer anyway. I think what is important is personal identity, not the body. If I was offered a new body that was superior to my current one I wouldn't hesitate to take the offer. However I don't simply consider it a carrier of my brain, but rather the interface by which I can interact with the world. The body is a great tool, but far from perfect. I'm saving up for neuro suspension since it's cheaper and presumably the vitrification process is less fatal, and I expect as much of my personal identity will be preserved. I would hate to be revived with a suboptimal body simply because I once chose to preserve it in the event it could come in useful. However I am a bit worried about the consequences of detaching the brain from the body. The brain is a highly complex adaptable system with an amazing number of connections to the human body, but since my brain has only ever been adapted to my body I wonder whether it will work as well with an artificial body. Does the brain itself even contain enough information to construct a suitable body that can communicate effectively with my brain? I certainly think so, but being a bit paranoid I also fear that it might not. I really hope cryonics companies start offering a plan where they store the brain and body separately. Then at least they could use my body as a rough template, or blueprint, for how my personal brain's communication protocol is structured.



yo dude if you want a plan of decapitating your head and store body separately, why not go for "headless clone"?


Anyone thinks there is muscle memory that's important? I don't, but I think the spinal column or at least the neurons in spine should be stored. There're secondary , tertiary neurons. As for whole identity, the CNS could be enough. Forget PNS. clone or cyborg it

#128 Luke Parrish

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Posted 29 July 2009 - 05:48 AM

What I'd like to do is get a really narrow UV laser and set it up to slice my body rapidly and set each slice on a plate. The slices would be thoroughly perfused by immersion and cooled evenly by computer-controlled technology. Later they could be stitched back together with only 1/4000th of the tissue missing and near 100% cell viability.

Practically speaking for now, I think I'll sign up for whole-body through CI because it is more affordable. But sure, I'd consider neuro. The brain is where most relavent personality data is stored.

#129 six

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Posted 14 October 2009 - 03:21 AM

is everyone hear doing one or the other? anyone waiting to see if cryopreservation techniques improve before they sign up either way? I know about the future being able to fix even our biggest screw ups now, but with all the media lately, is anyone doubting our current competancy?

#130 Cyberbrain

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Posted 14 October 2009 - 04:57 AM

is everyone hear doing one or the other? anyone waiting to see if cryopreservation techniques improve before they sign up either way?

Either one, the only thing that matters is preserving the brain. The body (I'm pretty sure in 200 years from now) could easily be replaced.

I know about the future being able to fix even our biggest screw ups now, but with all the media lately, is anyone doubting our current competancy?

Not here at least. Maybe occultist and conspiracy theory nut jobs. Cryonics overall should be approached cautiously, as with any medical procedure. But these falls allegations just seem to belittle its opponents (ie bioluddites or profiteers).

#131 six

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Posted 14 October 2009 - 11:57 PM

I know about the future being able to fix even our biggest screw ups now, but with all the media lately, is anyone doubting our current competancy?

Not here at least. Maybe occultist and conspiracy theory nut jobs. Cryonics overall should be approached cautiously, as with any medical procedure. But these falls allegations just seem to belittle its opponents (ie bioluddites or profiteers).




come on....if you were deanimating right now and I told you that Alcor was on it's way, you would have complete confidence in the work they were about to do????.... hauling you around in a u haul truck, dumping your blood down the public sewer system, hacking your head off with a hammer and chisel and then taking pictures with you headless body, half-ass trained "personel", etc... I'm not putting down cryonics at all, just Alcor.... I made a comment in another post about Alcor being the Kia of this business- splurge for the Lexus when your future life depends on it!

CI is regulated with the state of Michigan and things work smoothly with hospitals and funeral homes... why wouldn't Alcor want this same cooperation with Arizona? (and don't say that they do, when you know it's not true.)

#132 cryoguy

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Posted 17 October 2009 - 06:35 AM

come on....if you were deanimating right now and I told you that Alcor was on it's way, you would have complete confidence in the work they were about to do????.... hauling you around in a u haul truck, dumping your blood down the public sewer system, hacking your head off with a hammer and chisel and then taking pictures with you headless body, half-ass trained "personel", etc...

This paragraph is a good example of Johnson's style. Make an organization sound cheap when a rented vehicle may have been the fastest way to get a patient to their facility for treatment. Make an organization sound irresponsible for disposing of waste the same way funeral homes do. Dismiss an hour of surgery by a neurosurgeon to access major blood vessels of the brain as merely "hacking your head off" with woodworking tools. Characterize photographic documentation of procedures for patient records as paparazzi activity while Johnson himself actually sells such photographs on the Internet and bookstores in gross violation of patient privacy and basic decency.

CI is regulated with the state of Michigan and things work smoothly with hospitals and funeral homes... why wouldn't Alcor want this same cooperation with Arizona? (and don't say that they do, when you know it's not true.)

In Michigan such "cooperation" resulted in CI being banned from performing cryonics procedures in their own facility, something that they had previously done without incident for many years. That's hardly smoothly working. Similar harm is only to be expected whenever people who don't personally value, or even comprehend, a field are given legal authority over its details.

#133 Putz

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Posted 12 December 2009 - 07:54 PM

I am 19. If in 10 years I have a good amount of money and income I will pick full-body. If not, I may pick neuro.

The issue is that it is possible that some bodily organs other than the brain may influence your brain and they may be unique in how they do (and it may not be genetic, it may be environmentally caused). Say you have a certain hormonal gland that was affected sometime through your life for better or for worse but the hormonal output influences your personality. So if your brain was placed into a body grown by stem-cell technology or was wired to a computer, you may be missing some of the influencing factors that contributed to your personality - and there would be no way to tell the difference, no way to compare, as memories of one's own specific personality traits are dubious. I'm splitting hairs here though and it's negligible in the whole scheme of things.

#134 RighteousReason

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Posted 13 December 2009 - 04:16 PM

I am 19. If in 10 years I have a good amount of money and income I will pick full-body. If not, I may pick neuro.

The issue is that it is possible that some bodily organs other than the brain may influence your brain and they may be unique in how they do (and it may not be genetic, it may be environmentally caused). Say you have a certain hormonal gland that was affected sometime through your life for better or for worse but the hormonal output influences your personality. So if your brain was placed into a body grown by stem-cell technology or was wired to a computer, you may be missing some of the influencing factors that contributed to your personality - and there would be no way to tell the difference, no way to compare, as memories of one's own specific personality traits are dubious. I'm splitting hairs here though and it's negligible in the whole scheme of things.

My understanding is that neuropreservation is actually better at preserving brain structure- which is the most important thing. That is why I have chosen the neuropreservation option. If my understanding changes and I find that neuro is no better at preserving the brain than whole body then I will probably switch to whole body preservation.

#135 Medical Time Travel

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Posted 13 December 2009 - 09:43 PM

The issue is that it is possible that some bodily organs other than the brain may influence your brain and they may be unique in how they do (and it may not be genetic, it may be environmentally caused). Say you have a certain hormonal gland that was affected sometime through your life for better or for worse but the hormonal output influences your personality. So if your brain was placed into a body grown by stem-cell technology or was wired to a computer, you may be missing some of the influencing factors that contributed to your personality - and there would be no way to tell the difference, no way to compare, as memories of one's own specific personality traits are dubious. I'm splitting hairs here though and it's negligible in the whole scheme of things.


This is an important notification. I think that the conservative choice is whole-body suspension because of the reasons you mention. It may be the safest choice or maybe I have a bias against neuropreservation. I know about a person who is heart transplanted. In this case the heart is removed and replaced with a transplant. To avoid immune rejection the patient has to take immonosuppressant drugs to suppress the immune system as Ciclosporin A (CyA), Prednisolon, and maybe also Prograf (mostly used by woman to avoid heavily hair growth as a side-effect) , CellCept or others. The patient I write about has as other heart transplantation patients the nerves connected to the former heart cutted off. There are electric signals sended from the brain and recieved by the heart to increase or reduce pulse. In this case the nerves regenerated after some years. In most cases they don't. However organ transplantation doesn't affect your personality. In the early start of transplantation medicine specifically after the first heart transplantation performed by Dr. Christiaan Neethling Barnard on the date 03.12.1967 there were created some myths about personality changes. Personality changes reported by patients might have been to the trauma or that they have become in a general situation of better health. Then extend the organ transplantation to whole-body regeneration. As in your post there are some individ specific factors that should not be neglected. It might also be the case that it will take not only years but decades by science and technology (S&T) to come up with relevant accounts on the issue. From my view the whole-body suspension is the conservative or safe choice. If possible I think you should transport as much information as possible to the future.

Edited by Medical Time Travel, 14 December 2009 - 01:53 AM.


#136 Medical Time Travel

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Posted 14 December 2009 - 01:20 AM

Michigan such "cooperation" resulted in CI being banned from performing cryonics procedures in their own facility, something that they had previously done without incident for many years. That's hardly smoothly working. Similar harm is only to be expected whenever people who don't personally value, or even comprehend, a field are given legal authority over its details


I once read that Alcor and CI are based in two different states because the need to differentiate if one state decides to shut down the business of cryonics then you have a provider in a different state.

Edited by Medical Time Travel, 14 December 2009 - 01:25 AM.


#137 RighteousReason

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Posted 14 December 2009 - 01:44 PM

The issue is that it is possible that some bodily organs other than the brain may influence your brain and they may be unique in how they do (and it may not be genetic, it may be environmentally caused). Say you have a certain hormonal gland that was affected sometime through your life for better or for worse but the hormonal output influences your personality. So if your brain was placed into a body grown by stem-cell technology or was wired to a computer, you may be missing some of the influencing factors that contributed to your personality - and there would be no way to tell the difference, no way to compare, as memories of one's own specific personality traits are dubious. I'm splitting hairs here though and it's negligible in the whole scheme of things.


This is an important notification. I think that the conservative choice is whole-body suspension because of the reasons you mention. It may be the safest choice or maybe I have a bias against neuropreservation. I know about a person who is heart transplanted. In this case the heart is removed and replaced with a transplant. To avoid immune rejection the patient has to take immonosuppressant drugs to suppress the immune system as Ciclosporin A (CyA), Prednisolon, and maybe also Prograf (mostly used by woman to avoid heavily hair growth as a side-effect) , CellCept or others. The patient I write about has as other heart transplantation patients the nerves connected to the former heart cutted off. There are electric signals sended from the brain and recieved by the heart to increase or reduce pulse. In this case the nerves regenerated after some years. In most cases they don't. However organ transplantation doesn't affect your personality. In the early start of transplantation medicine specifically after the first heart transplantation performed by Dr. Christiaan Neethling Barnard on the date 03.12.1967 there were created some myths about personality changes. Personality changes reported by patients might have been to the trauma or that they have become in a general situation of better health. Then extend the organ transplantation to whole-body regeneration. As in your post there are some individ specific factors that should not be neglected. It might also be the case that it will take not only years but decades by science and technology (S&T) to come up with relevant accounts on the issue. From my view the whole-body suspension is the conservative or safe choice. If possible I think you should transport as much information as possible to the future.

I'm not sure if that is right. As I just stated above, my understanding is that neuropreservation is better as preserving the brain than whole body preservation. Yeah, it might be nice to keep the whole body around for regeneration, but doing so at the risk of compromising the quality of your mind- that is certainly not a safe or conservative choice. Whole body would then be much riskier and neuropreservation would be seen as much more conservative and safe. The quality of your brain when it is preserved is by far the most important thing in cryonics.

#138 vog

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Posted 24 December 2009 - 03:25 AM

I don't think it matters what the current technology is, the head alone will always be much easier to preserve than the whole body. I don't think it matters if it is vitrification, or the ability to get cryoprotectants perfused as quickly, or anything else that may come in the future. The whole body just takes longer and requires more procedure than the head alone, so there will always be a slight preservation advantage (imo) to neuropreservation as opposed to whole body preservation.


Just speculating, but couldn't you instead preserve the brain and body separately and thereby avoid these technical difficulties (if cost isn't a factor).

Yes, I think some people have done this as well, paid for a neurosuspension and a full body suspension, and then have the body as well as the head in seperate dewars. I would think there would be certain advantages to this if someone had enough money to do so.



Also, I found it interesting that the main reason the Cryonics Institute gives for not doing "neurocryopreservation" (as they call it) is for cultural reasons.

In their own words:

Journalists and horror novelists invariably have a field day with 'frozen severed heads', and focus not on the scientific or humanitarian sense of cryonics, but on making cryonics look grotesque or ridiculous. Why ask for such trouble - trouble that can put a patient at risk?


I wonder how much of a detrimental effect that neuro-only preservation has on cryonics? ...And, also, how many people choose full body preservation because they think the neuro would be harder to take for their family? (having a head detached is kind of spooky culturally)



#139 harris13.3

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Posted 18 January 2010 - 10:07 AM

Is the jaw also preserved along with the head in a neuro suspension?

I've got a model skull with me and about 25% of the space is occupied by the jaw. Removing it turns the head into a more spherical shape. I can understand how companies might want to save space that way.

Edited by Condraz23, 18 January 2010 - 10:08 AM.


#140 chrwe

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Posted 28 April 2010 - 11:33 AM

I`m going to sign up for the full body preservation on pretty much the same grounds that Lazarus gave, that you need even more advanced medicine/technology for the head-only option and I want to give myself the best chance at the earliest time.

Btw, I consider the odds better than Pascal`s wager, but depending on what happens in this world, it could either be decent or nearly nil. You just cannot make real assumptions, only that it is better than zero.

Lately, I have seen some evidence that memory is also retained in the body, that makes it more interesting to preserve said body.

People often neglect that the most important aspect of your personal chance is how fast you get perfused after death which depends on quite a lot of things sadly.

#141 chrwe

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Posted 11 June 2010 - 09:07 AM

With the current protocols, brain is probably better preserved with "head only" preservation - I just got the contracts from CI and they make this their favorite choice unless you specifically wish for "full body".

Since I hope to have many years left (with potential increase in technology), I signed up for full body anyway. Why? Because it has not been solved yet how much our spine and maybe even our other body parts are part of personal identity and memory.

I may re-decide, however, if by the time death comes closer the protocols have not improved. Brain is guaranteed to be most of "ourselves" after all.

#142 Paul Crowley

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Posted 07 August 2010 - 09:02 AM

For financial reasons, I'm signed up with CI, which means whole body. If I had unlimited wealth, though, I'd still want my body preserved, for reasons I've not seen anyone else here give yet.

If I'm reanimated, I think it will most likely be through scanning and emulation rather than through bodily reanimation. I'd like my initial experience of waking up to be as familiar as possible. I'd have a lot to get used to in those first times - I'd like my body to feel something like it did when I was deanimated. I might not stay that way for long, but it seems like it might be handy for getting over the initial shock of return.

#143 JJN

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Posted 21 September 2010 - 10:18 PM

With the current protocols, brain is probably better preserved with "head only" preservation - I just got the contracts from CI and they make this their favorite choice unless you specifically wish for "full body".

Since I hope to have many years left (with potential increase in technology), I signed up for full body anyway. Why? Because it has not been solved yet how much our spine and maybe even our other body parts are part of personal identity and memory.

I may re-decide, however, if by the time death comes closer the protocols have not improved. Brain is guaranteed to be most of "ourselves" after all.



Does this mean that CI now offers head only preservation? I haven't been following the field lately, and wasn't aware that they changed their mind on it.

Jeff

#144 chrwe

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Posted 23 September 2010 - 07:18 PM

Yes, they have.

#145 bgwowk

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Posted 26 September 2010 - 05:39 PM

Yes, they have.

I don't believe that's correct. CI doesn't offer neuropreservation. My understanding is that CI's standard whole body procedure is to only perfuse the head with cryoprotectants, leaving the rest of the body to freeze without any cryoprotection. For this reason, the CI procedure is sometimes compared to neuropreservation. However it is not literally neuropreservation.

Alcor perfuses the entire body with vitrification solution. After perfusing the head, I think CI offers perfusion of the body with an ethylene glycol-based solution as an extra optional treatment.

Edited by bgwowk, 26 September 2010 - 05:43 PM.


#146 IDoNotWantToDie

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Posted 02 November 2012 - 04:20 AM

I am getting full body cryopreservation at Alcor but after reading about what people wrote about neuropresevation Im second questioning myself.

Is it really true that the research scientists at Alcor watching over my dead body pay closer attention to the brain of a neuropresevation than to the brain of a full body cryopreserve patient?

What are the pros and cons of each option? Anyone got a list because I would really like to know what is the best option?

Edited by IDoNotWantToDie, 02 November 2012 - 04:30 AM.

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#147 mikeinnaples

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Posted 05 November 2012 - 04:07 PM

I have been rethinking my position on whole body vs neuro as well. From a technology standpoint, it is going to take considerable technology to reverse vitrification at the nano level. I think that if this level of technology exists for a successful reversal, then the technology will exist to engineer a brain a new 'body'. From a financial stand point and for the long term well being of organizations like ALCOR, it would probably be to do Neuro only as well. It is more affordable to new clients and I believe the overall storage cost is less for neuro only because you can store far more in a single container.

Anyways....

#148 Brain_Ischemia

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Posted 15 November 2012 - 11:00 PM

Is it really true that the research scientists at Alcor watching over my dead body pay closer attention to the brain of a neuropresevation than to the brain of a full body cryopreserve patient?


If you are really "dead," then there is no reason to cryopreserve you.
What do you mean by "closer attention"?

What are the pros and cons of each option? Anyone got a list because I would really like to know what is the best option?


Your brain (CNS) is the one indispensable body part you have, no?
It is difficult to justify much concern over preserving what will be a decrepit body ravaged by age and associated pathology. Everything below the neck amounts to an accumulation of replaceable organs; presumably, these would replaced by new organs even in whole body patients.

If you are a Neuro patient, CPA perfusion efforts will be focused exclusively on the brain.
It's also worth noting that long-term storage of Neuro patients is significantly less challenging (and thus less vulnerable to risk).

then the technology will exist to engineer a brain a new 'body'.


I don't think that engineering a body would require mature nanotechnology. The basic science and technology to "engineer" a new body is more simplistic than you might think. Re-connection of CNS is certainly more difficult, though this is not far off. Repairing the damaged brain, however, is another story entirely...

Edited by Taurus Londoño, 15 November 2012 - 11:02 PM.


#149 mikeinnaples

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Posted 16 November 2012 - 03:38 PM

I don't think that engineering a body would require mature nanotechnology. The basic science and technology to "engineer" a new body is more simplistic than you might think. Re-connection of CNS is certainly more difficult, though this is not far off. Repairing the damaged brain, however, is another story entirely...


We had a disconnect here.

I actually meant that if we have obtained the level of technology needed to repair a brain post vitrification, we will most likely have already obtained the technology needed to engineer a new body. Making a new body is the easy part in my opinion.

#150 erzebet

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Posted 04 May 2013 - 08:56 PM

If you asked me this question some years ago, I would have chosen neuro hands-down.
Now things are different - I realized the brain depends on everything else - circulation, heart, lungs, immune system etc - just read any neurology/general medicine textbook.The brain death criterion is a convention only - useful in rich countries - even if it is theoretically accepted everywhere - because in reality, resources are limited...and politics gets in the way.
For people saying it is not worthy preserving a decrepit body - well, the brain ages too!
The human body is not a computer and life is more complex than I thought - so I'd pick whole-body cryopreservation.




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