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CruxBuzz Staff

Exploring the Possibilities of Life Extension Through Alcor’s Cryonics Technology”

Technology, USA

The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, a pioneering institute of cryonics and cryonics technology. It is a nonprofit organisation that was established in 1972. With the addition of vitrification (ice-free cryopreservation) to Alcor’s protocols, cryonics is the science of employing extremely low temperatures to preserve human life. Cryonics is founded on the belief that one day, highly developed medical techniques and molecular nanotechnology would be able to awaken cryopreserved persons and bring them back to full health i.e. technology that enables to extend life beyond death.

Alcor completed its first human cryopreservation in 1976 and is governed by the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. The expense of cryopreservation at Alcor services is frequently covered by reasonably priced life insurance with Alcor listed as the policy beneficiary. Whole body cryopreservation, which involves freezing the complete body, costs $200,000, whereas neuropreservation, which involves freezing the brain only, costs $80,000. While the majority of Alcor’s members have historically been men, around the age of 40, and interested in computers or other sciences, the membership has changed in the twenty-first century to include more women and entire families. Alcor offers services called “Standby.”

As a result, it is anticipated that in the future, full-sized machines will be developed to repair any potential damage from the cryopreservation processing and disease at the cellular level with its well-developed molecular nanotechnology. This will help humans to cryopreserve and restore them in good health.

Alcor is now the only full-service cryonics company in operation. Alcor has a board of directors, a patient care trust board, a medical advisory board, and a scientific advisory board. Over 180 patients have been cryopreserved at Alcor, where there are over 1300 members from all over the world.

Cryonics Myths 

Myth 1: Cryonics freezes people

Alcor currently favours vitrification as a technology. More than 60% of the water inside cells is replaced with protective compounds during the ice-free process of vitrification. Whole kidneys have been successfully retrieved and transplanted after being cooled to -45°C while being shielded by vitrification chemicals. Blood vessels have been reversibly vitrified in this manner.

Myth 2: Cryonics preserves dead people

The only way a stopped heart can result in death is if nothing is done when it does. Cryonics makes a suggestion. The goal of cryonics is to halt the dying process while there is still a chance that it could be possible to reverse it in the future. Even today, the initial few minutes of clinical death are undoubtedly reversible. Sometimes cryonics is used even after the heart has stopped. Cryonics does not hold that the dead may be brought back to life. It is believed that until the mind is destroyed, a person is not truly dead, and that low temperatures may be able to stop this destruction.

Myth 3: Cryonics is an indulgence of rich people

The majority of Alcor’s members are middle class, and they pay for cryonics through life insurance. Any healthy young individual in the developed world who planned for it has access to cryonics. The lifetime cost of cryonics for a young person is comparable to that of smoking, cable TV, or frequent eating out.

Myth 4: No reputable scientists or physicians support cryonics

Alcor’s membership includes prominent scientists and doctors, as well as members of the American National Academy of Sciences and experts who have testified before the U.S. Congress on topics unrelated to cryonics.

Myth 5: Cryonics conflicts with religion

Cryonics aims to conquer life-threatening sickness by safeguarding and conserving life. Both medical and religious pro-life views are consistent with cryonics. After more than an hour without breathing, a heartbeat, or any mental activity, hypothermia patients have been brought back to life. Occasionally, deep cooling is employed during neurosurgery when the heart needs to be stopped to “turn off” patients for extended periods of time. Cryopreserved and resurrected human embryos are a common practise. Because cryonics is fundamentally similar to these other types of “suspended animation,” if it works, it will work.

Cryonics Terminology 

Cryopreservation: Preservation of cells or tissue at cryogenic (below -80 degC) temperatures for an indefinite period of time.

Cryonics (not Cryogenics): Cryopreservation of humans with intent of future resuscitation.  Laws currently require cryonics to be performed after legal death, but death is not part of the basic idea of cryonics.  The purpose of cryonics is to preserve life.

Clinical Death: Absence of heartbeat or breathing.  

Legal Death: A legal determination that continued life support is not appropriate or possible. 

Standby: Preparations and onsite waiting for legal death prior to a cryonics case.

Pronouncement: Pronouncement of legal death by a medical doctor or other qualified authority.

Transport: The phase of a cryonics procedure between pronouncement and treatment with cryoprotectant chemicals at Alcor.

Ischemia: Inadequate or absent blood circulation.  Cryonics transport procedures reduce and treat ischemic injury, especially cerebral ischemic injury (ischemic injury to the brain).

Vitrification:  Vitrification is an ice-free process in which over 60% of the water inside cells is replaced with protective chemicals. This completely prevents freezing during deep cooling.

Terms to Use with Care

Dead or Death:   The permanent cessation of life.  Cryonics is not a treatment for death. It is based on the premise that a person cannot be considered dead until their mind (brain) is physically destroyed, making resuscitation impossible by any means.  It should never be compared with burial, cremation or other means of dealing with people who have experienced permanent death.

Suspended Animation: A great slowing of metabolism that is demonstrably reversible.  Cryonics will not be suspended animation until it is reversible in practice, not just theory.   

Terms to Avoid

Corpse:  Alcor refers to those cryopreserved under its care as “patients”.  Referring to them as “anatomical donors” is also accurate.

Resurrection or Coming back to life: Restoration of a person from cryopreservation to a healthy state.

Cryopreservation Process 

The protection of the brain following cardiac arrest is known to be most successful when simultaneous cardiopulmonary assistance (CPS, comparable to CPR) and fast cooling are used.

Femoral arteries and veins may be opened, depending on the logistics, to replace the patient’s blood with an organ preservation solution and to quicken cooling. If the patient is outside of Arizona, they are transported by air to Alcor’s facility in Scottsdale, Arizona, while being packed in ice.

Major blood vessels are connected to a perfusion circuit at Alcor by a medical professional or veterinarian. All blood arteries are pumped with a cryoprotectant solution, which replaces some of the water in the cells. Over the course of two hours, the cryoprotectant concentration is gradually raised to 50% of the final goal concentration.uu

Computers continuously track data on temperature, pressure, and cryoprotectant concentration. Two holes are drilled into the skull with a common neurosurgical tool (a 14 mm Codman perforator) to allow visual monitoring and verification of brain perfusion as well as observation of the brain’s osmotic reaction.

After cryoprotective perfusion, patients are chilled using nitrogen gas moved at a temperature of -110°C under computer control. The objective is to rapidly chill the patient to below -100°C in order to prevent the creation of any ice. The patient is then progressively cooled over the course of about two weeks, to -196°C. Sensitive equipment is used to monitor patients throughout this prolonged cooling process in order to spot the fracture events that frequently take place when massive objects are chilled below the glass transition temperature.

Following cooling, patients are then transferred into liquid nitrogen at a temperature of 196°C. They are thereafter kept in Alcor’s Patient Care Bay. Since Alcor uses liquid nitrogen to keep cryonics patients cold, electricity is not required for current patient care systems.

Some or all of these procedures, except for cooling, may be impossible if a patient experiences legal death without a cryonics team standing by.  

Brain preservation at Alcor Foundation 

Computers continuously track data on temperature, pressure, and cryoprotectant concentration. Two holes are drilled into the skull with a common neurosurgical tool (a 14 mm Codman perforator) to allow visual monitoring and verification of brain perfusion as well as observation of the brain’s osmotic reaction.

After cryoprotective perfusion, patients are chilled using nitrogen gas moved at a temperature of -110°C under computer control. The objective is to rapidly chill the patient to below -100°C in order to prevent the creation of any ice. The patient is then progressively cooled over the course of about two weeks, to -196°C. Sensitive equipment is used to monitor patients throughout this prolonged cooling process in order to spot the fracture events that frequently take place when massive objects are chilled below the glass transition temperature.

Conclusion 

Cryonics patients of today will need to be repaired in the future using extremely sophisticated technologies, including molecular nanotechnology. A revived human would naturally be able to regrow new tissues, organs, and a healthy body with technology that is sophisticated enough to fix a cryopreserved brain. As a result, Alcor does not believe that body transplants or donations will ever be required for the resuscitation of cryonics patients. We wish Dr. Canavero luck as he develops body transplant surgery for current patients who might benefit until sophisticated tissue regeneration technology is created.

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