Frozen human brain tissue was successfully revived for the first time

https://bgr.com/science/frozen-human-brain-tissue-was-successfully-revived-for-the-first-time/

by amichail • 2 years ago

164 110 2 years ago

Because 'lab grown self-organizing brain samples continue to grow after being frozen' is a little less appealing than the clickbait title

Retric• 2 years ago

Small mammals up to the size of hamsters can successfully be cryogenically frozen and revived significantly later. So while the same thing working on small samples of human tissue is completely expected it’s still useful research for organ transplants etc.

All that cryogenic preservation that showed in science fiction is somewhat realistic even if we can’t do it yet and it’s probably going to require extensive surgery beforehand to enable rapid cooling.

lisper10• 2 years ago

Small mammals up to the size of hamsters can successfully be cryogenically frozen and revived significantly later.

Reference?

a-r-t• 2 years ago

From the article: "The researchers also applied their technique to three-millimeter cubes of brain tissue from a 9-month-old girl with epilepsy. The tissue maintained its pre-freezing structure and remained active in a laboratory culture for at least two weeks after being thawed."

Waterluvian5• 2 years ago

and remained active in a laboratory culture for at least two weeks after being thawed

I’m sure I don’t fully understand the details but this kind of thing both excites and horrifies me when I ponder how much brain might be necessary to sustain the experience of consciousness.

zaptrem• 2 years ago

Likely relevant to source of the living brain tissue:

“Brain biopsies on 'vulnerable' patients at Mount Sinai set off alarm bells at FDA, documents show” https://www.cea.fr/english/Pages/News/world-premiere-living-...

Atotalnoob• 2 years ago

A millimeter cube seems large when it comes to a 9 month… Let alone 3…

This seems weird that they got this much LIVING brain tissue…

dyauspitr• 2 years ago

I thought brain cells didn’t reproduce.

musicale• 2 years ago

a little less appealing than the clickbait title

I read that as "appalling" and ... it's kind of both.

FireInsight• 2 years ago

I just imagined dying and then noticing myself thinking again but without any sensory inputs; freaky stuff.

baxtr• 2 years ago

I recommend you google sleep paralysis. I experienced it a couple of times when I was younger. Really scary.

Waterluvian5• 2 years ago

I had it once and it was the most terrifying experience of my life.

nuancebydefault2• 2 years ago

I remember that when I was around 8 or so, it happened several times in the morning while waking up, that I saw someone entering the bedroom while I was not able to speak or move. It was terrifying. It must have been imagination, since nobody appeared to have noticed anything unusual.

Is there a name for such event?

ineedaj0b2• 2 years ago

If you get this often, I've noticed it's tied to sleeping position. I'm often at an angle where I'm getting poor oxygenation, sorta like sleep apnea.

For me this is on my back with no pillow (angle of neck/throat) but I'm fine on my side or stomach.

intelVISA2• 2 years ago

First time it hit me I was like "am I dead?" creepy stuff, subsequent times are more annoying than scary.

stevenwoo• 2 years ago

This was super freaky before one could read about it on the internet, I remember it happening to me in the 1970-1980s and thinking it was something really wrong with me or supernatural in nature at the time, which as another commenter notes was what people in medieval times thought. It was such a relief to read that other people had similar experiences by 1990s.

Teever2• 2 years ago

A few years ago I became interested in the cryonics movement.

What I find most interesting about it aren't the kooks and weirdos that are into cryonics, but the visceral reaction that your average Joe has to the idea.

The average opinion about cryonics seems to range from 'That is impossible' to 'why would you want that?'. But if you ask that same average Joe about a cure for cancer they're likely to say that it's been done and the rich just horde it for themselves.

It's weird that they don't see things like cures for cancer, regrowing organs, age slowing drugs etc... as all part of a pathway to the same thing which is a technological solution to many causes of aging and death.

Unlocking the ability to grow and store organs or even just store donated organs cryogenically is highly desirable from an economic standpoint has it frees up so many resources (1pc of US GDP is spent on dialysis alone) so if there's a technological means to do it we're going to find a way sooner or later.

And once we've found a way to freeze and revive large parts of the body it's just a gruesome divide and conquer from there...

spondylosaurus• 2 years ago

I did read an interesting thing recently (can't remember where unfortunately) about ongoing strides in the transport and preservation of donor organs. If we crack the code to putting a kidney in ice, you can get it across the country to its new owner instead of crossing your fingers that someone local needs one and is a recipient match.

lttlrck• 2 years ago

By my calculations 0.078% of GDP is spent on dialysis. Still crazy looking at the raw numbers.

$20billion/$25.4trillion

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp

https://www.propublica.org/article/in-dialysis-life-saving-c...

exe342• 2 years ago

imagine a life where a contract between you and a soulless corporation or religious order forbids you from dying, and no matter how many times you try to escape, they bring you back for untold miseries.

BriggyDwiggs42• 2 years ago

I mean, sounds like a skill issue to me

RajT88• 2 years ago

Read those EULA's!

shrubble• 2 years ago

"We need you for long term maintenance of our mainframe's COBOL code base; in return we pay you very well, but when we say long-term, we really mean it."

Qem• 2 years ago

You must watch the movie Moon (2009). I strongly recommend. See https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1182345/

wonderwonder3• 2 years ago

Essentially a Ghola in the dune universe

tempaccount420• 2 years ago

Your favorite sci-fi plot is not a realistic prediction of the future.

RecycledEle• 2 years ago

Read "We are legion. We are Bob." It includes that plot.

There is alao the bit about a revived cryo-guy being a computer program running an exterminator company. Then he decides most teenagers at the mall need to be exterminated.

wiseowise• 2 years ago

Imagine living happy, fulfilling endless life.

_xerces_• 2 years ago

Reminds me about an article on ECMO machines I read where they are researching hooking them up to single organs and not just people. If you can keep the organ alive for some time it opens the possibility of making transplants easier, or even removing someone's diseased liver, say and treating it outside the body then putting it back a few weeks later.

mbil• 2 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40214525

blargey• 2 years ago

a technological solution to many causes of aging and death.

I wouldn't count the cryonic freezing of a perfectly good brain (aka immediate brain death) among those, at least until there's a convincing solution to the teletransportation paradox.

ultrarunner• 2 years ago

Imagine a backlog of frozen people who can now be unfrozen due to the availability of a cure, but who now have to reintegrate into society. The political implications would parallel the controversy introducing refugees

Teever2• 2 years ago

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Transmetropolitan/Issue-8?i...

Enjoy.

This comic series and specifically this issue is what made me fascinated about cryonics as a teen.

stenl• 2 years ago

Freezing and thawing organoids is not new, it’s fairly routine. The frozen piece of brain from an epilepsy patient doesn’t retain ”normal function”. There is no evidence in the paper that it integrates into neuronal circuits (this was not even tested), or supports anything like normal neuronal firing. The cells are alive, yes, and likely highly abnormally perturbed.

dcist• 2 years ago

Big news for Ted Williams

platz• 2 years ago

are you sure https://www.espn.com/boston/mlb/news/story?id=4524957

caseyy• 2 years ago

Interfering with the pathway that causes cell death is very interesting. Maybe more than freezing.

intelVISA2• 2 years ago

Gives me hope we can reverse the damage wrought by Js and return to Lisp

andrewstuart• 2 years ago

So is Walt Disney coming back?

m3kw9• 2 years ago

Next is to freeze and unfreeze someone for a couple weeks and see if they are still the same person. If this works everyone and their mothers will want to be forwarded a few hundred years

qingcharles• 2 years ago

If you're very rich you could probably forward yourself now by building a very fast spaceship and flying out for a while and come back a decade or two into the future.

stevenalowe• 2 years ago

It said "Just five more minutes, Mom" and went back to sleep.

xyproto• 2 years ago

Cryo me up, Scotty.

Frozen human brain tissue was successfully revived for the first time

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