X-Message-Number: 14078 Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:26:54 -0400 From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: a VERY short summary of memory Hi Gurvinder! I don't read every Cryonet as soon as it comes out, and maybe I missed your request. If you want to find out more in detail, either buy my commented bibliography on memory and our brains from Alcor, or subscribe to PERIASTRON for a few issues ($3.00 US per issue; contact me separately on Cserve () if you want to discuss this latter possibility in more detail. Basically I'd say that just how our memory works is very important for cryonics now, and will continue to be important even when we can vitrify brains rather than use our current freezing methods. The reason it will continue to be important is simple: NOT EVERYONE will get the best possible suspension for some time into the future --- I'd actually argue that best possible suspensions literally for everyone is impossible. And that means that we'll need everything we can find out about how memory works to revive such people. PERIASTRON has been discussing that possibility for some time now. Yes, it looks like work to allow vitrification will come true, and I have started to report on it, too --- citing the papers involved. (For at least 10 years there simply wasn't much of worth to cryonicists in cryobiological research). To summarize how memories work, VERY briefly, it now looks as it they are stored in the fine-level connectivity of our neurons. In that way (broadly) we work like neural nets in computing, but no computer uses neural nets which resemble how our brains work at all: the connections between neurons apparently grow and change constantly, and have other features no one has tried to imitate even in neural net computing, such as the importance of different forms of transmission (inhibitory versus excitatory, using different chemicals). Moreover, we have at least 3 distinct kinds of memory and probably more. Best wishes and long long life, and I hope this was helpful, if you wanted it, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=14078