Will We Ever Be Able To Bring Cryogenically Frozen Corpses Back To Life? A Cryobiologist Explains

The biggest hurdles

Cryopreservation of whole brains is a niche interest at best. Experiments with frozen whole animal brains have not been reported since the 1970s. While factors like a good blood supply and high tolerance to mechanical distortion may facilitate brain freezing, particular technical and scientific challenges exist, especially where the goal is to preserve regulatory function and memory. Without huge breakthroughs in such research, it is likely to remain the one factor holding back therapeutic applications of whole-body cryopreservation.

But there’s another huge hurdle for cryonics: to not only repair the damage incurred due to the freezing process but also to reverse the damage that led to death – and in such a manner that the individual resumes conscious existence.

From a purely technical point of view, this added complication might be worth avoiding. For example, someone who suffers from dementia will have already lost his or her memory by the time they die and will therefore no longer be the same if woken up after being cryogenically frozen. Faced with this, patients with neuro-degenerative disorders who do not wish to live with the condition any longer may therefore seek to be frozen before death, in the hope that they will retain some memory if revived in the distant future. This clearly raises both legal and ethical questions.

So will it one day be possible to cryopreserve a human brain in such a manner that it can be revived intact? As explained, success will depend on the quality of the cryopreservation as well as the quality of the revival technology. Where the former is flawed, as it would be with current technologies, the demands on the latter increase.

This has led to the suggestion that effective repair must inevitably rely on highly advanced nanotechnology – a field once considered science fiction. The idea is that tiny, artificial molecular machines could one day repair all sorts of damage to our cells and tissues caused by cryonics extremely quickly, making revival possible. Given the rapid advances in this field, it may seem hasty to dismiss the entire scientific aim behind cryonics.

Alexandra Stolzing, Senior Lecturer of Regenerative Medicine, Loughborough University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.