A New Frontier in Brain Preservation
Death is an inevitable part of life, but for scientist Borys Wróbel, it could also be the beginning of a new way of ‘living’. As the chief scientist at Nectome, a Portland-based start-up focused on preserving the human brain and body, Wróbel has made significant progress in finding ways to keep our brains functioning long after death. Alongside fellow scientists Aurelia Song and Anna LaVergne, the team recently succeeded in preserving a pig’s body and brain, which they hope will eventually allow future generations to communicate with people who are alive today.
The Vision of Digital Immortality
Wróbel’s vision involves uploading human brains to computers, allowing individuals to continue their existence in a digital form. He believes that this technology could one day enable people in the year 3000 to converse with those who lived centuries ago. “It’s a huge loss to us as humanity to be losing the experience of people every day,” he says. “Think about the wisdom of people who lived through World War Two. It’s a different thing, to be able to talk to someone and ask them questions, than to look at memoirs or reports.”
The Science Behind the Process
The research conducted by Nectome aims to preserve the brain’s intricate network of connections, known as the connectome. This vast and complex system holds everything that makes us who we are. However, mapping the connectome is no easy task. Neuroscientists face challenges such as ice, which can crush cells as it forms, and time, which causes the brain to deteriorate rapidly after death.
To overcome these obstacles, Nectome inserted a tube into a pig’s heart 10 minutes after the animal suffered a cardiac arrest to flush out the blood. They then injected preservation fluids containing aldehyde chemicals to glue the brain cells together. This solution, called a cryoprotectant, replaces the water in tissue so that jagged ice doesn’t form when the brain is cooled to -32°C.
Preserving the Brain’s Structure
Wróbel explains that if they wanted, they could lower the temperature even further, turning the tissue into a glassy state. “Nothing is alive there, per se; life as we know it can’t continue. It’s just to see the structure and be able to maintain that information.” The team discovered that the brain’s neurons and synapses were largely unspoiled by the process, which is a significant achievement given the complexity of the human brain.
Future Possibilities
Wróbel hopes that our brains, including his own, might be preserved so that a future civilization could bring the mind back. By ‘mind’, he refers to a thinking, feeling, and remembering mind that would wake up with all your thoughts, memories, and thinking patterns. Unlike cryonics, which preserves people by cooling them, Wróbel is talking about ‘reanimation’—a process where scientists could analyse the brain’s structure and use it to recreate them in engineered living tissue or a computer with a robotic body.
Ethical and Scientific Challenges
Despite the promising results, Wróbel acknowledges that reanimating a brain is not possible with current technology. To continue their research, Nectome is asking people who are terminally ill to come to Portland, Oregon, and donate their brains and bodies for science. Oregon’s ‘Death with Dignity’ law allows doctors to prescribe lethal medication for dying patients after a complex process of requests and waiting periods.
Experts like Ben Goult, a professor of mechanistic cell biology at the University of Liverpool, question whether a reanimated brain could truly be conscious. “Conscious experience is deeply embedded in bodily signals and interactions with the environment,” he says. “A brain brought into awareness could never be a true restoration of the person it once was.”
Bethany Facer, a neuroscientist at the University of Liverpool, adds that taking a snapshot of the brain’s circuitry doesn’t capture all the complex activity inside it. However, she acknowledges that the conversation around brain preservation shows how far neuroscience has come.
The Road Ahead
Eric Klein, founder of the Lifeboat Foundation, believes that the answers to these questions will arrive one day. “It’s a fascinating technique in an age where existential risks are posing threats to our survival from all sides,” he says. “With over 10 million people walking around on the planet after having spent some time frozen as embryos, it is fascinating when attempts are made to preserve people so they can be revived in the future.”
