Quick links to our most recent content:

Aspirational Neuroscience Prize: Call for Nominations

YouTube Video Documentary Series on the Brain Preservation Foundation

YouTube BPF Neuroscience Journal Club Videos:

Journal Quotes on Synaptic Encoding of Memory

Press Release: Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation Wins Final Phase of Brain Preservation Prize

Kenneth Hayworth’s Letter of Support for Aldehyde Stabilized Cryopreservation (and ‘next steps’ caveats)

Vitrifying the Connectomic Self: A case for developing Aldehyde Stabilized Cryopreservation into a medical procedure (Essay)

YouTube Overview Video: Aldehyde-Stabilized Cryopreservation is Cryonics for Uploaders

Pig Prize Evaluation Images (3D Electron Microscopy and Gross Dissection Views)

The Great Library of Alexandria, constructed in the third century BC, was the center of science and learning in the ancient world. Its collection of tens of thousands of scrolls contained the hard-won knowledge of the ancient world and a priceless trove of human history. But with the destruction of the library almost all of this knowledge was lost. “The burning of the Great Library of Alexandria” has become a metaphor for any reckless destruction of unique knowledge –an inexcusable insult to both the original author and to future generations.

Considering today’s obsession with digital archiving we might think that future generations will thank us for our careful conservatorship. But in fact it is much more likely that they will look back at the early 21st century and view it as “another burning of the Great Library of Alexandria!”

To understand why, consider how far neuroscience has come in just the last decade, then envision the world a few centuries from now. Today’s neuroscientific theories have led us to deep learning neural networks which allow our apps to understand speech, recognize faces, and even drive autonomous cars. Neuroscience imaging technology is preparing to map entire insect and small mammal brains at the nanometer scale using ultrafast electron microscopes, with the near-term goal of reading memories. We are using powerful new tools in genetics, molecular biology, biotechnology, microscopy, systems biology, data science, and other fields to finally uncover the set of epigenetic, extracellular, and synaptic changes that form the molecular basis of memory. The 2014 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience was won by three neuroscientists for the discovery of specialized brain networks for memory and cognition. The 2016 Brain Prize was won by three neuroscientists for elucidating the molecular mechanisms of long-term potentiation, one of the keys to storing and sustaining lifelong memories in mammalian brains.

If the world continues this accelerated pace there is every reason to expect that in a few hundred years we will have a complete science of how the brain gives rise to mind, and the technological prowess to routinely upload memories and minds. This will be a world whose technological advancements and material prosperity are as far beyond us today as we are beyond the ancient Greeks. Citizens of that future world will have conquered disease and death and overcome countless other biological limitations. They will viscerally understand what today’s neuroscience textbooks try to convey: The mind is computational, and a person’s unique memories and personality are encoded in the pattern of physical connections between neurons.

From that vantage point, future generations will ask:

“Is it possible to preserve the the synaptic connectivity of the human brain at death in a way that it could be stored for >100 years?”

“How close is cryonics to meeting that goal?”

“Are there alternative brain preservation methods stemming from modern neuroscience research?”

In 2010 we established the Brain Preservation Foundation with an eye to this future perspective. We asked:

We reasoned that one of the best ways to definitively answer these questions was to offer a challenge prize:

The Brain Preservation Prize: A challenge to cryonicists, a challenge to scientists

Now we have begun to get some real answers. Two world-class research labs (21st Century Medicine and Shawn Mikula’s laboratory at the Max Planck Institute) entered into our prize competition.

21st Century Medicine (21CM), a leading cryobiology research laboratory, was the perfect choice to test how well state-of-the-art cryonics preserves brain ultrastructure. A summary of their results can be found on our 21CM Cryopreservation Page. That research uncovered limitations in the current cryonics protocols when judged against the goal of verifiably preserving synaptic structure. As a result 21CM invented a new brain preservation protocol, called “Aldehyde Stabilized Cryopreservation”, which appears to have entirely overcome these limitations. A summary of their results can be found on our Aldehyde Stabilized Cryopreservation Page.

Separately, Shawn Mikula’s laboratory has not only worked out how to preserve a whole mouse brain at the ultrastructure level, but has done so in a way that makes it directly compatible with today’s high-speed 3D electron microcopy. Our evaluation results of a whole brain entry he sent us can be found on our Mikula Evaluation Page.

It now seems a reasonable proposition that, if the medical and scientific communities were to expend a modicum of effort, reliable, inexpensive, and scientifically proven procedures for brain preservation could be made available, in short order, in hospitals to all terminal patients that might desire it over the current alternatives (i.e. burial and cremation).

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. Informal surveys imply that a significant percentage (>10%) of the (online, technologically-savvy) population would desire the option for themselves, especially if friends and loved ones did so as well. Cryonics has never attracted significant numbers despite decades of trying, but in our experience most people rationally refuse to consider cryonics because they have no real proof of the quality of preservation. This new “field” of scientifically-verified brain preservation we are witnessing today may fundamentally change that calculus.

Coming back to our analogy: We are the scrolls in today’s Library of Alexandria. Each of us has spent decades honing our unique identity and accumulating our unique memories. Our memories 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 be one of the very last generations to cower under its looming 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 perfecting 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 implement such a procedure in hospitals, for all who might want this option at the end of their lives.

Next Steps

If you find any of these arguments persuasive, please Sign our Petition, and add your public comments on what the brain preservation choice means to you, and why you think it’s important to make available to everyone who might want to consider it, as an end of life option for themselves and their loved ones. Want to do more? See our page on How You Can Help.

BPF Position Statements on Three Topics, for Scientific, Medical, Legal, and Government Professionals and the General Public

Brain Preservation Services. 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 (memories, at least) is validated to be contained in preserved 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. Such a validation has not happened yet, in our opinion. A company, Nectome, led by a team that won our most recent technology prize, is working towards offering the procedure that won our prize for public use. Nectome is also planning to use assisted dying laws to offer this procedure, to improve affordability and maximize quality. In our opinion, medical ethicists, physicians, and legal professionals should be involved in any public preservation services initiatives that may emerge. This seems particularly important for any use of assisted dying procedures. The medical ethics community has not yet weighed in on proper process yet for such a procedure, to our knowledge. 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 Nectome, or any other company, does further animal experimentation that is published in open journals, and a published medical ethics and legal review of their contracts and consent process, prior to any offering of public services. Memory Preservation. Validation of preservation value for public use, in our opinion, requires making a case that such preservation will preserve 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. BPF co-founder Ken Hayworth is writing a review paper on the state of knowledge and debate with respect to memory preservation requirements. After it is published we hope to engage the neuroscientific community around this question. Until a minority professional consensus emerges for its potential value, validation of ASC’s value for public use has not occurred, in our opinion. Sustainability, Affordability, and Accessibility. For BPF to advocate public services development, we will also need to make a reasonable case, in open journals, that those services can be provided sustainably with respect to the environment, and made both increasingly affordable and accessible to the general public, as a matter of social justice. The resource costs of preserving and “uploading” small animal connectomes, while those simulations are quite incomplete today, has been exponentially decreasing with the progression of digital computers. AI, automation, and such 50-year trends as Koomey’s law also allow us make a case that future reanimation may be done particularly sustainably with respect to the environment. Affordability and accessibility of public services must also be discussed, and we hope to do our small part to advance that discussion, should validation of preservation accuracy and value be achieved . At present, we are focused on validation, a process that may still take a number of years to occur, from our perspective.

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.