X-Message-Number: 1429
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 92 16:47 PST
From:  (Keith Lofstrom)
Subject: CRYONICS - Skull removal during suspension


A lot of "why won't this work?" questions are being answered gently and
well, so I thought I would ask one of my own:

Why are we preserving skulls with the brains?

I can imagine a suspension team ( probably with more surgical skill than
we are currently blessed with) removing most of the skull, leaving the
ridge above the eyes and bone around the ears to act as structural support
(saving all the pieces, of course) and opening the exposed dura mater, then
plunging the whole thing into an appropriate perfusion bath.  Why?  Well,
it may be easier to reach parts of the brain with perfusant through the
folds in the brain than through the circulatory system, or perhaps easier
through both approaches in parallel.  I imagine the bath would have to
be pressurized at the arterial pressure of the pump driving the perfusant
through the circulatory system.

Since partial skull removal is something we *already* can deal with
medically, the major downside risk I can see is accidental damage to
the exposed brain, through mishandling, or too-vigorous washing of the
exposed surfaces.  Possibly the perfusant injected into the circulatory
system would leak out rather than get where it belonged if the skull was
open.  Or perhaps the ambient arterial pressure would tend to close up
the veinous ends of the brain capillaries.  Or perhaps things would 
shift around too much when the pressure of the skull was removed.

Or perhaps the upside benefits are insignificant. 

Personally, I would rather keep a few more memories than an intact skull;
I am already signed up neuro so they won't compromise my brain suspension
trying to save my body.  My uncle survived 25 years with a steel plate
(installed at Corregidor) in his head.  I suspect skull removal in surgery
has got to be more benign than skull removal via Japanese bullet...  

Keith

?

-- 
Keith Lofstrom                Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Power ICs

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