X-Message-Number: 5515 From: (Brian Wowk) Newsgroups: sci.cryonics Subject: Re: AP Timothy Leary article synopsis & ponderings Date: 31 Dec 95 20:25:23 GMT Message-ID: <> References: <4c6kbq$> In <4c6kbq$> Randy Smith <> writes: >The article closes with some intriguing and quite possibly profound >statements by Leary: >"The most interesting time of human life, I think, is when your heart >stops, and for between two and 15 minutes, your brain is still running. I >think the most interesting part of my life is going to happen in those 2 >to 15 minutes. Because time doesn't exist then." As I recall, the brain shuts down completely (flat EEG) less than one minute after cardiac arrest. With current technology, it can usually be revived if blood flow is restored a couple of minutes later. The first response of an ischemia-injured brain when blood flow is restored is a storm of electrical activity known as "excitotoxicity." How much of so-called Near Death Experiences occurs during the few seconds before the brain stops, during the trickle-flow of manual CPR, or during the excitotoxic revival interval I do not know. In any case, I'm sorry to report that it's all academic where cryonics is concerned. Cryonics (or any procedure that stops the brain completely) can only preserve long-term memories. Memories that are only a few minutes old exist as transient electrical impulses (like dynamic RAM in a computer) before they are converted to physical changes in synapses (like disk storage) over the course of several hours. This is vividly demonstrated in patients who undergo deep anesthesia, protracted ischemia, or electro-convulsive therapy, who typically lose several hours of memory prior to the event. You might have the greatest NDE of your life (an oxymoron?) during your cryopreservation, but the memory of it will not survive the procedure. It is true that some cryonics patients (like the one recently done by BPI for CryoCare) enjoy a couple hours of high-quality cardio-pulmonary support following cardiac arrest. While this may theoretically be long enough to allow consolidation of long-term memory, the anesthesia used during the procedure would probably inhibit the consolidation process. *************************************************************************** Brian Wowk CryoCare Foundation 1-800-TOP-CARE President Your Gateway to the Future http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5515