SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submission Preview
Scientists Freeze Brains, Then Thaw Them – and They're in Perfect Order
Scientists have preserved and recovered cryogenically-frozen brains in near-perfect condition [theregister.co.uk].
Robert McIntyre and Gregory Fahy from 21st Century medicine [21cm.com] were able to prevent neuron shrinkage that follows dehydration.
The pair used ultrafast chemical fixation and a new cryogenic storage technique called aldehyde-stabilised cryopreservation (ASC) to preserve and thaw rabbit and pig brains.
The Brain Preservation Foundation announced [brainpreservation.org] the team had won the Small Mammal Brain Preservation Prize for the work first published last August in the paper Aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation [PDF [sciencedirect.com]].
"To demonstrate the feasibility of ASC, we perfuse-fixed rabbit and pig brains with a glutaraldehyde-based fixative, then slowly perfused increasing concentrations of ethylene glycol over several hours in a manner similar to techniques used for whole organ cryopreservation," the pair say in the paper.
