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Pig brains partially revived four hours after death
- aperrien 8y agoIf this technology pans out, and there doesn't seem to be anything fundamental against it, the future will be very different from what I imagined. Medical treatment, space travel and exploration, even retirement may have gotten a lot more interesting.
- bufferoverflow 8y agoNot really. We know that oxygen-starved brain quickly destroys itself in minutes, unless very cold. So even if you can revive a brain after hours, it will not be a very good brain.
- aperrien 8y agoWhy would anyone wait a few hours after death to do the technique? Wouldn't it make more sense to do it right away, and get the brain into its new medium? Right now there's all the limitations of something that's a nascent technology, but the methods should surely be improved as time goes on.
- bufferoverflow 8y agoCause it takes time to get to the hospital that does the procedure and it takes time to start the procedure.
- rticesterp 8y agoTrain first responders to do it. There's already a pilot program for blood transfusions and it's already saving lives: https://wtop.com/virginia/2019/03/new-fire-and-rescue-program-delivers-blood-trapped-crash-victims/ https://wtop.com/virginia/2019/03/new-fire-and-rescue-progra...
- Balgair 8y agoWhat am I missing here? Rodent studies routinely use whole brain and slice tissues for long term neuro-experimentation [0]. You can keep slices alive for days on end, if you're careful [1]. Is it just that it's a whole pig brain that they used these tried and true techniques with? Ischemia isn't something to laugh at, it's very tough to deal with. But the 'ethical' issues have long been put to bed, we've been doing this since 1951 [2] [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28744893 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28744893 [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9914290 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9914290 [2] McIlwain, H., Buchel, L. & Cheshire, J. D. The inorganic phosphate and phosphocreatine of Brain especially during metabolism in vitro. Biochem. J. 48, 12–20 (1951).
- ggm 8y agoCellular revived not neurally coherent?
- contextual 8y agoAnimal cruelty at its most horrific.
- luckydata 8y agoFrankenstein has taught us nothing uh?
- delinka 8y agoWhat could he? He never shared the details of his methods with us. All we have is some third party account with superficial descriptions.
- davidw 8y agoIdle thought: Frankenstein with VC money... "Yeah, we're raising our series A so we can ink a deal with a Chinese morgue for a steady supply of parts to stitch together, and to scale up our electricity generation to the needed amount so we don't have to depend on the odd lightning bolt, which turns out to be really rare here in Palo Alto"
- fsniper 8y agoThat could be a great short, or a novel.
- apoph3nia 8y agoWhat would the growing tech dystopia be without recourse to some sort of 'zombie pig' threshold at the hardware level?
- JTbane 8y agoDr. Frankenstein definitely moved fast and broke things.
- veryworried 8y agoI don’t see why they bothered drugging the brains. Even if they became conscious, the pig’s bodies are dead and gone. There is nothing to feel, one is simply alone with their thoughts, perhaps even dreams.
- nkrisc 8y agoThat's quite the extraordinary claim. Is there any evidence to backup that assertion? As far as I'm aware nobody knows what a living brain detached from the body actually experiences.
- matchbok 8y agoPain exists in the brain, not the body.
- veryworried 8y agoNo matter how hard I think, I cannot seem to manifest any true pain in my mind. I doubt a pig could either.
- hxegon 8y agoWell I'm sure you doing the thought exercise is the same as killing yourself and then reviving yourself 4 hours later to see if you feel any pain, we should all really defer to your scientific ethical expertise in the future.
- ssully 8y agoI don't think it's that hard to imagine that at a minimum a sensation like phantom pain existing in this scenario.
- yathern 8y agoJust because your brain is where all feelings 'exist' doesn't mean you have the ability to manifest it at will. But the brain does plenty of things to us that we don't want. I don't think excruciating pain would be something a brain-in-a-jar would feel - but it's possible that being deprived of all sensory connections would cause things to get weird quickly. Sort of like phantom limb syndrome!
- fmihaila 8y agoThis is from the Nature article on the same subject [1]: > [...] Nevertheless, the development of technology with the potential to support sentient, disembodied organs has broad ethical implications for the welfare of animals and people. “There isn’t really an oversight mechanism in place for worrying about the possible ethical consequences of creating consciousness in something that isn’t a living animal,” says Stephen Latham, a bioethicist at Yale who worked with Sestan’s team. He says that doing so might be ethically justifiable in some cases — for instance, if it enable scientists to test drugs for degenerative brain diseases on the organs, rather than people. Gauging awareness in a brain outside a body would probably be difficult, given that the organ’s surroundings would differ so radically from its natural environment. “We could imagine that brain could be capable of consciousness,” says George Mashour, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who studies near-death experiences. “But it’s very interesting to think about what kind of consciousness, in the absence of organs and peripheral stimulation. [...]” It's also 'very interesting to think' how many more dimensions this could add to torture. This is the end of the article: > [...] In the meantime, scientists and governments are left to confront the legal and ethical quandaries related to the possibility of creating a conscious brain without a body. “This really is a no-man’s land,” says Koch. “The law will probably have to evolve to keep up.” Koch wants a broader ethical discussion to take place before any researcher tries to induce awareness in a disembodied brain. “It is a big, big step,” he says. “And once we do it, it’s impossible to reverse it.” Sobering. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01216-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01216-4
- honestoHeminway 8y agoEthic implications = Somebody unethtical runs with it, until the economics of scale make the crime unattractive and the ethic dilemma is replaced with a cheap - ehtically netural alternative. At least there where meetings with free soft drinks and canapes.
- gwern 8y agoFulltext: https://www.gwern.net/docs/longevity/2019-vrselja.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/longevity/2019-vrselja.pdf _Nature_ overview/discussions: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01216-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01216-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01168-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01168-9
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoThrowing it out there—when I'm dead, you are totally allowed to resuscitate my brain. Better than being dead. Please make sure I am supplied with some good books to read, if at all possible.
- probably_wrong 8y ago> Please make sure I am supplied with some good books to read, if at all possible. Seeing as we don't have full eye transplants yet, it seems possible (at lest with near future tech) that they could resuscitate your brain but not your other I/O peripherals, including your eyes. To misquote Harlan Ellison, you may have no mouth with which to scream. It seems to me that your average case would involve either total darkness or the worst case of phantom limb ever. Or even worse: they might give you eyes, but no one to turn the pages for you.
- Wowfunhappy 8y agoWell, that's why I specified "if at all possible." :) I'd imagine that if we do establish "IO" that "text" would be the first/easiest type of data. It might be encoded in a strange way, but, well, I'll have plenty of time to adapt...
- paraschopra 8y agoI’m sorry but this feels like an ignorant view. Brain relies on sensory information coming from inside the body - hunger, bodily awareness, skin temperature, etc. Without these signals, we have no clue whether you’ll be in immense confusion, anxiety, sadness or bliss. It could very well be much worse than death, Are you ok with that gamble?
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago> Are you ok with that gamble? Yes.
- fmihaila 8y ago> Throwing it out there—when I'm dead, you are totally allowed to resuscitate my brain. Better than being dead. Are you comfortable with the possibility that those who are reviving you might not be doing it for your benefit?
- nabla9 8y agoImagine donating your body to science and then waking up in a lab as a brain in a vat. "A Living Soul" by P. C. Jersild is amazing sci-fi book exploring this. https://www.amazon.com/Living-Norvik-Press-English-Swedish/dp/1870041097/ https://www.amazon.com/Living-Norvik-Press-English-Swedish/d... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._C._Jersild https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._C._Jersild
- utexaspunk 8y agoI was thinking of the Bobiverse- have your head preserved for reanimation when future technology allows, only to have it declared a non-person and sold to a corporation which digitizes your brain and puts it in a satellite... https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse/dp/B01L082SCI https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse/dp/B01L08...
- Darkphibre 8y agoExcellent series, I highly recommend it!
- bargl 8y agoCame here to say the same thing. It's a really great series and an interesting thought experiment.
- dade_ 8y agoOr have your body frozen and brought back to life when they can cure your disease: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4074928/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4074928/
- DoreenMichele 8y agoPersonally, I think I would rather bet on the (reincarnation) theory that if I'm good/do the right things in this life, I'll get a better body that isn't broken next time around.
- Balgair 8y ago
- equalunique 8y ago>a specially designed liquid round the brain, which contained a synthetic blood to carry oxygen and drugs to slow or reverse the death of brain cells. I had no idea humanity achieved synthetic blood. This is from the study: >a haemoglobin-based, acellular, non-coagulative, echogenic, and cytoprotective perfusate that promotes recovery from anoxia Am I the only one excited by what viable synthetic blood might mean for blood banks? Study is here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1099-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1099-1
- Balgair 8y agoYou can buy Artificial cerebro-spinal fluid from places like this: https://www.tocris.com/products/acsf_3525 https://www.tocris.com/products/acsf_3525 Or you can make it yourself per: http://www.alzet.com/products/guide_to_use/cfs_preparation.html http://www.alzet.com/products/guide_to_use/cfs_preparation.h... Artificial blood is way trickier, but there are a lot of advancements being made. It's really exciting!
- equalunique 8y agoThank you. These links are illuminating.
- contravariant 8y agoI reckon artificial blood is a lot easier in the absence of an immune system.
- Skunkleton 8y agoIt probably helps that it doesn't need to last more than a few hours too.
- dguest 8y agoDon't get your hopes up. I worked in a neurology lab where they used something similar years ago. You could keep a pig / rat brain running for a few hours like this, but it would start to fall apart in other ways pretty fast.
- scotty79 8y agoFreezing your head might be good idea. If one day you could simulate a braina and scan a brain in sufficient detail just freezing might be enough to keep sufficient detail. Who you are must be in chemistry of your brain not in the electricity because you are same person after epileptic seizure as before.
- goldenkey 8y agoDoes an epileptic seizure modify the slow brain wave activity? It would have less data due to a smaller sampling rate but still might be necessary to avoid "total refresh"? Have we EMPed brains before to see if they lose any prior memories? Afaik, ECT therapy has been despised by many folk for making them forget whole weeks of their pasts. The question is whether the electricity is causing changes or just interrupting existing flow....
- moises_silva 8y agoYou might be interested on https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/12/what-makes-you-you.html https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/12/what-makes-you-you.html
- scotty79 8y ago... intersting but some ideas are bit silly. You can't copy brain to brain. No two brains are the same. You have to copy whole brain.
- AQuantized 8y agoThis presumes that you are the same person after a seizure, or even after a nap, or even after half a minute of ordinary life, or even a unitary "person" to begin with.
- scotty79 8y agoThat's a philosophical question (i.e. useless). You are same enough for practical purposes like holding relationships and retaining knowledge and skills.
- charlieo88 8y agoWait, isn't this how the zombie apocalypse normally starts?
- halfbrown 8y agoThat’s precisely what I was thinking!
- byteface 8y agoAnyone here considered cryo? the only thing putting me off is being trapped in an infinite torture with some bitter robot overlord. The good thing about death is just that. No one can suffer infinitely. We get to die. I read a short story once where this kind of happens. It's the end of time and 3 people are stuck in an evil machine who keeps them alive. Then one guy kills/free's 2 of the others. Can't remember what it was called. May have been an Asimov short. As far as I know cryo can be as little as £30 a month on a life insurance plan. Backing people up will become big business if they can show everyone there is nothing metaphysical about the mind.
- saalweachter 8y agoNow I'm just imagining the contents of one's brain entering the public domain 70 years after death.
- kittiepryde 8y agoI have no mouth and I must scream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Scream https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_... Is it this?
- byteface 8y agowow. amazing. so much came back to me reading that. was a long time ago. thanks!. But ye, before this book I was well up for cryo. Since, I've decided death is probably for me.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- iandanforth 8y ago"Mostly dead is slightly alive!"
- dwd 8y agoWas slightly disappointed that none of the researchers' names was Max.
- rixed 8y agoImmediately reminded me of that unforgettable movie in which a 1WW soldier who have lost all his sensory inputs and motor control and is still alive brain is used for experiments. Movie title is "Johnny got his gun". No idea how mainstream it is but i suspect not that much. If you believe nothing could be worse than death, you should consider to watch it.
- kstrauser 8y agoIt was relatively unknown until Metallica based a popular song and video on it.
- rossdavidh 8y agoPerhaps, but we read it in my high school English class, in a small midwestern town in the 1980's, so it wasn't _that_ obscure.
- utexaspunk 8y agoThe book is better, IMHO. Dalton Trumbo. Younger people tend to be familiar with the movie via the video for Metallica's "One" https://youtu.be/WM8bTdBs-cw https://youtu.be/WM8bTdBs-cw