X-Message-Number: 13689 Date: Sun, 7 May 2000 09:51:40 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: CryoNet #13683 - #13686 Hi everyone! It seems to me that the main problem of quadriplegia and other such conditions has to do with nerve connections rather than muscles --- which is not to deny the existence of conditions in which our muscles DO become wasted. In this context it's very important that work is going on RIGHT NOW to find out ways to regrow connections between the nerves to the muscles and those from our brain. This naturally includes ways to reconnect broken or severed spinal cords. There are a number of experimental treatments which actually show partial success ie regrowth of some but not all nerves or partial repair of spinal cords. References on request. If we merely repair muscles in such conditions, without somehow repairing the connections, we've essentially gotten nowhere. Something may also need to be done to regrow wasted muscles AFTER broken connections have been regrown, but it is the loss of nerve connections which is primary. Incidentally, in cryonics terms this strongly suggests that if given a head-only suspension there should not be any basic problem in reconnecting the patient with a body. In terms of getting the body (unless we do something even more advanced, which is to make the head grow another body much as embryos do) I can forsee lots of ethical carrying-on, but the basic SCIENTIFIC and MEDICAL problem would not be a big problem... and maybe by the time we can do the reconnection well enough, the body problem will have become only a historical controversy long settled. Maybe. Somewhat more advanced methods would certainly allow repair of brains --- EXCEPT for the major problem of recovering memories. Best and long long life for all, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=13689