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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

We agree there is more to the mind than the synaptic connections between neurons. The exact molecular and electrochemical features of the brain that underlie the conscious mind remain far from completely explored. However, available evidence lends support to the possibility that brain features that encode memories and determine behavior can be preserved during and after cryopreservation [technologyreview.com].

Cryopreservation is already used in laboratories all over the world to maintain animal cells, human embryos, and some organized tissues for periods as long as three decades. When a biological sample is cryopreserved, cryoprotective chemicals such as DMSO or propylene glycol are added and the temperature of the tissue is lowered to below the glass transition temperature (typically about -120 oC). At these temperatures, molecular activities are slowed by more than 13 orders of magnitude, effectively stopping biological time.
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Direct evidence that memories can survive cryopreservation comes from the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, the very animal model discussed in Hendricks’s response. For decades C. elegans have commonly been cryopreserved at liquid nitrogen temperatures and later revived. This year, using an assay for memories of long-term odorant imprinting associations, one of us published findings that C. elegans retain learned behaviors acquired before cryopreservation. Similarly, it has been shown that long-term potentiation of neurons, a mechanism of memory, remains intact in rabbit brain tissue following cryopreservation.

Going to sleep and waking up in a time when the world will finally have flying cars is appealing, but would you really enjoy life as a walking anachronism?

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