A Great Day! (was: Re: Heart-Brains & Cryonics (was Re: Thinking with our hearts))

Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Mon, 12 Jul 1999 20:12:10 -0700 (PDT)

Upgrade! writes:
> Up till this I had been in two minds about whether to go for head-only
> or full-body suspension. It now seems that full-body is the better
> option, warranting the extra cost. Thanks.

Due to prolonged process of dying prior to suspension in essentially every patient the periphery (due to body's built-in protection mechanisms) gets very limited blood flow for days -- it thus 1) suffers extensive damage 2) thus gets very very patchy cryoprotectant perfusion. While the most recent best-case(!) ischaemic (rabbit) models seem to imply even neuros are getting a very rough ride, this need not to remain so in the future (if cryonics is part of euthanasia in ICU setting). Single-organ vs. multi-organ cryoprotection is intrinsically much simpler to achieve. (Though I am not sure of this) neuros achieve faster and better perfusion by clamping off the rest of the body. Additional (admittedly minor) point with whole-body: cracking. Financial reason: neuros are cheaper, since whole-bodys don't utilize dewar volume well.

Since the technology necessary for suspension can essentially generate a body or a model thereof which is essentially undistinguishable from the real thing, whole-body basically doesn't make sense. Ymmv.