X-Message-Number: 4937
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 95 16:38:56
From: Steve Bridge <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Neurosuspension: Head First
President's Column for CRYONICS magazine -- 3rd quarter, 1995
Steve Bridge, President
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
*Neurosuspension: Head First into the Future*
At the conclusion of most tours here at Alcor, I end up in the
Patient Care Bay with an awe-struck visitor staring at the 9-foot tall
Bigfoot dewars. They really are an inspiring sight -- both a non-final
resting place for some of the smartest people on the planet and an
audacious symbol of what might be the most optimistic idea in human
history. Many of these visitors come to Alcor with little knowledge of
cryonics, or even of life extension, aging reversal, nanotechnology, or any
of the other wonders we envision. By the time we get to the big climax of
the tour, their minds are spinning. Then they ask, "Wait a minute, I
thought there were twenty-nine patients. But you said there are only
eleven in these big cylinders. Where are the others?"
I then point at the two huge concrete vaults on the opposite wall.
"Well, you see, 18 of our patients chose to have only their heads frozen.
We call this *neurosuspension*."
The most common reaction is a stunned pause with eyes growing to the
size of saucers. For them, the entire building has just melted into
surreality, like Salvador Dali's clocks, sculpted in ice. A few people
laugh in surprise or nervousness. A small number look queasy or
disgusted. And occasionally, if I have done my job well and set up the
visitor with descriptions of the repairs that will be possible in the
future, the visitor will say, "Oh, that makes sense. You can just grow a
new body for the brain."
Our readers' reactions are probably very similar. Some of you may be
reading an issue of Cryonics for the first time; you may be reading in
detail about cryonics itself for the first time. But even for people who
have been involved in cryonics for many years, the issue of "how much
should you freeze" can be disconcerting. It certainly took me a couple of
years before I could easily throw off my instinctive reactions and
appreciate the idea that the brain is the most important part (and perhaps
the only necessary part) to preserve.
The most basic step in understanding neurosuspension is one on which
we can all agree: our memories, personalities, and most of the other
critical parts of our *identities* are in our brains. People can have heart
and lung transplants and still be the "same person." Even someone
paralyzed from the neck down thinks of himself as having the same
identity. On the other hand, someone else who has lost her memory may *look*
like the same person, and we may even use the same name for her; but
clearly her identity is missing.
The primary keys are our own unique experiences, which create in us
memories different from anyone else's. Each individual in a set of
identical twins has the same genetic makeup and similar birth environment;
but from birth on they are separate beings which experience life and
acquire memories from their own unique perspectives.
There is no such thing as a "brain transplant;" a brain transferred
into a new body would be a "body transplant." We *are* our brains.
This same understanding means that freezing the body of a patient
whose brain had been removed and destroyed, or destroyed within the skull
by disease or injury, would *not* save the identity of that person. With
only the physical information in the rest of the body available, we could
possibly use the DNA and chemical information to create a clone (an
identical twin) with, in effect, total amnesia; but we couldn't reproduce
the original memories and identity. We *might* be able to recreate many of
those memories from the writings of that person and from memories of
experiences which might be shared with family and friends; but that would
be more a *new creation* than a "re-creation."
So, are we planning to revive neurosuspension patients as "heads on a
plate," with tubing and wires sticking out? No, of course, not.
Neurosuspension patients will be revived with a full body, young and
healthy, just like the whole body patients. Actually, I used to say that
no one would *want* to be "just a head;" but the variety of human existence
is such that almost certainly someone will eventually think that a
bodiless existence sounds deeply fulfilling. Not me, thanks.
"Young and healthy" -- think about that. Many of Alcor's whole body
patients were age 65 or older when they were placed into cryonic
suspension. They had cancer, heart disease, and considerable problems
from basic *aging*. There is no point in reviving people and curing their
cancer but not curing their aging. I don't want to be both near-immortal
and painfully aged anymore than I want to be a head-on-a-plate. So, if
cryonics works at all, aging will be reversed.
Sound difficult? Perhaps, but no more difficult than the basic
concept of cryonics repair itself. If a technology can be developed to
repair the injuries added to patients by our imperfect freezing processes,
it will most likely have to work by making at least some repairs *cell-by-
cell*. Aging is not magical; it involves misarrangement of molecules, just
like everything else that can go wrong with us. If we can repair cancer
and heart disease in the cells of these frozen patients, we can surely
learn to make *all* their cells healthy again. And healthy equals *young*,
for all practical purposes.
It may turn out that growing new bodies for whole-body patients is
even simpler than repairing them cell by cell. Look at what our bodies
can do already. We can all grow skin over a cut. Our bodies can recover
from the massive trauma of heart bypass surgery. Young children can often
regrow a fingertip severed in a car door. The repairs possible in the
future will be more extensive, because the field of medicine is putting a
tremendous emphasis on accomplishing them. For instance, within 25 years,
spinal injuries may not be paralyzing or fatal. Researchers are making
steady progress in regrowing the connections in crushed or severed spinal
cords.
Our understanding of how cells operate and grow is expanding rapidly.
Someday we will learn *why* the child can regrow that fingertip and use that
knowledge to regrow entire missing limbs. At that point, we won't need
organ transplants from deceased donors -- we will simply have new copies
of our own hearts or livers grown for us, with genetic flaws eliminated.
Eventually physicians may develop such fine control that they can spot the
damage early on and renovate the injured organs from the inside out, with
no replacement necessary.
We all grew a body once. One tiny cell's molecular machinery and DNA
instructions combined the chemicals available (supplied at first by the
mother's womb and later by the grocery store) and eventually assembled
them into us big people. These instructions are not lost when we become
adults; the DNA is still there. Considering this everyday miracle,
growing a new, improved copy of your body for your brain (i.e., *you*) to
occupy seems almost easy.
So if the final outcome will be the same, what are the advantages and
disadvantages of neurosuspension vs. whole body suspension?
Let's start with the easy one: *cost*. Alcor requires a minimum
suspension funding donation of $120,000 for whole body suspension and only
$50,000 for neurosuspension. (Each option carries a $10,000 surcharge for
members outside the United States.) That's a pretty large difference for
most people. Even if you are funding your suspension with life insurance,
the premiums are obviously higher for the larger policy.
Why the difference in cost? The upfront expenses of both types of
suspensions are similar. Even in a neurosuspension we need the complete
circulatory system so we may perfuse the patient's brain with chemicals to
protect the cells from cooling and freezing damage. The head and the
body are not separated until after the glycerol perfusion has been
completed. We do save some expense on a neurosuspension by clamping off
the circulation to the lower body, so we require less total solution.
The real difference is in storage costs. All of the patients are
stored in liquid nitrogen at -320 F. No matter how well insulated,
liquid nitrogen is constantly evaporating and returning to the air; we
have to add more nitrogen to the dewars each week. Alcor has to *pay* a
local supplier for this liquid. One of our steel Bigfoot dewars boils off
about 12-15 liters of nitrogen per day, whether it contains one whole body
patient or the maximum of four. Each neurosuspension dewar (inside a
concrete vault) holds nine patients and loses nitrogen at only half the
rate of the whole-body units. This means the nitrogen cost per
neuropatient is only about one-ninth of the cost per whole-body patient.
There are many other factors in the storage costs that are more
evenly divided between neuro and whole-body patients, so the total
difference is not 1/9; but it is still large. To ensure enough principal
in the Patient Care Fund so that the earnings can cover expenses, we
invest $70,000 (at least) of the suspension funding for whole body
patients. We only have to invest about $17,000 to achieve the same result
for neuropatients.
Neuropatients are also easier to transport in an emergency. The
Bigfoot units are about nine feet tall, weigh almost 2 1/2 tons, and take
several people to move. However, we can quickly move the neuropatients to
small, individual dewars that can be placed in the back of a van or pick-
up truck and handled easily by two people. You might not at first think
of that as an advantage, since taking care of the patients is a rather
passive activity. However, we were certainly glad that Dora Kent was a
neuropatient in 1988 when the Riverside Coroner wanted to autopsy her
already frozen head. She was out of the building when the Coroner's
deputies arrived. (Alcor later obtained an injunction against the Coroner
to protect Mrs. Kent and to prevent future attempts to seize patients.)
You can imagine your own paranoid scenarios about possible legal problems
or natural disasters in the future when the neuropatients might have a
transport advantage (except it's not "paranoid" on the days when they
really are out to get you).
There may be at least one repair advantage to having a complete body
to work with. Certainly a whole body patient takes more total *information*
along into the future, although it is still hard to say how significant
the added information is. For some people, the pattern of nerve growth
development in the body may be very important to their identity -- for a
dancer or musician, for instance. On the other hand, enough of that
information may be encoded in brain development that the same result can
be achieved either way. We don't know yet; so we can't say for sure if
you are risking anything by leaving your body behind.
Neurosuspension may convey a significant upfront biological
advantage, however. If the cryonic suspension team can concentrate on
just the brain, and not worry about the best suspension methods for the
liver, muscles, and intestines, more sophisticated techniques may
eventually be developed that result in a higher level of brain
preservation. Certainly, a tight focus on the brain today results in
shorter perfusion times; and once the freezing process begins, the smaller
package of the head can be more rapidly cooled to temperatures where the
biological and chemical activity are halted.
One important consideration for cryonicists is which method will
result in less time in suspension. Suspension patients can no longer make
their own decisions. Their vulnerability means that time in suspension is
time at risk. But I can see nothing credible which convinces me that one
method will result in resuscitation sooner than the other. In fact, my
personal guess is that the technology to repair a body cell by cell and
the technology to grow a new body will occur at about the same time and
involve nearly the same processes. Besides, in both cases the most
important limiting factor will be the same and will be the hardest task by
far: the *brain* must be restored to proper function and consciousness.
Finally, there are the possible social disadvantages of having only
your head frozen. No, I don't mean that telling people of the future you
were once a neuropatient will get you fewer dates. "I was always a head
of my time" will still be a good way to start a conversation. The
problems may occur with your less imaginative friends and relatives *today*.
Let's face it: no matter how logical I make neurosuspension sound and how
many advantages it may have, we've all seen too many movies about the
French Revolution and other kinds of sharp-edged activities which made it
pretty clear that a head without a body had no future at all. The concept
of cryonics is hard enough to explain and sell to most people on its own,
even *without* explaining how the missing bodies will be replaced.
So you have to decide what's important to you. If you can afford
whole body suspension, and you feel it is either a truly better option,
and you just can't deal with the alternative -- or you can't deal with
*telling* people about the alternative, then your choice is easy. However,
if you cannot afford $120,000 in cash or life insurance, then you have to
start working on that old logic circuit in your brain. Start talking with
your family and friends about cryonics and cell repair right away so they
get used to the basic concept. Then when you spring frozen heads on them
later, they may not see it as such a strange idea.
Either way, you cannot totally avoid the idea of neurosuspension.
You see, we at Alcor long ago decided that no matter which method was
truly the best, burial was infinitely worse than either. So we have this
important clause in our *Cryonic Suspension Agreement* -- "Emergency
Conversion to Neurosuspension." Basically, this says that if the economy
totally collapses or the legal climate turns against cryonics or some
other calamity occurs so that we can only save or afford to maintain the
neuropatients -- *then everyone will become neuropatients*. All Alcor
suspension members have to agree to this in their Suspension Agreements.
We're adamant about maintaining whole body patients in whole body
suspension and we'll do everything we can to meet that obligation. But if
the choice is between burial/cremation or switching everyone to head-only,
there is no doubt in our mind what we will do. We haven't spent all of
these years protecting our patients just to surrender when the going gets
tough.
So how do you choose which kind of suspension you want now, and how
do you keep your future options open? You must compare your definition of
"ideal" with what you can afford. One of the biggest unknowns in the
future is how much the true cost of cryonics will be as it becomes more
popular. Some things will grow more expensive, some probably less. But
the strength and continuation of your cryonics organization will be one of
the most critical factors, and possibly the true key, as to whether or not
you stay in suspension. Doing the minimum possible as a member is not a
survival characteristic.
I recommend you consider the solution I have chosen myself. At least
for the next ten years, in these early days of cryonics, if you can afford
$120,000 in insurance or other funds, then plan for that amount but *choose
neurosuspension*. If it happens that you need to be suspended in the next
decade, instead of spending money on keeping all of that extra mass
frozen, let those extra funds go toward research, marketing, legal funds,
and otherwise making sure your organization can thrive. If you're still
kicking up your heels in ten years, and Alcor is so rich and powerful that
your measly extra thousands won't make a bit of difference, then you can
reconsider. If it won't harm your organization, you could switch your
choice to whole body and take the extra information along. If you want
whole body suspension today, I recommend funding it at a level of
$200,000, for the same reasons. For insurance, the difference in premiums
won't be that much; and it could make all the difference in the world to
your cryonics group -- which could mean all the *time* in the world to you.
SIDEBAR
The two questions that everyone wants answered but that they really
don't want to ask:
1. So, umm, how do you, uhh, you know ... remove the head?
Actually, we think of it as removing the body. And you already know
the answer. Since evolution and genetic technology have failed to come up
with neck zippers, pop tops, or screw-off heads, we have to use a scalpel
and a surgical saw, just as a surgeon would use for amputating a leg. No
way around it.
2. What do you *feel* like when you do that?
Perhaps the most important thing that all medical and emergency
workers must learn is that one often has to do unpleasant procedures to
save someone's life. A surgeon does not enjoy removing a child's leg
which has been mangled in an accident; but the surgeon knows his level of
technology is not good enough to save the leg -- only to save the life.
To do nothing would certainly condemn the child to death. So the surgeon
does what he has to do and knows it is the only choice he has.
It is not much harder emotionally to perform a neurosuspension than a
whole body suspension. We don't know if cryonics will work in general or
if it will work for the particular acquaintance, friend, or relative we
are trying to save today. But like the emergency workers and the surgeon,
we know that not to act at all means sure failure. We do the best we can
for our patients, even if that rescue work requires that we perform
emotionally difficult tasks like removing their bodies. We do this
because we care about them and want to see them alive and healthy again
someday. And we do it because we want that same attitude to be present if
*our own* turn for suspension should come.
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