Scientists Develop New Technique To Thaw Frozen Brain Tissue Without Harm (medicalxpress.com) 56
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Medical Xpress: A team of medical researchers at the National Children's Medical Center, Children's Hospital, Fudan University, in China, has developed a technique to freeze and thaw brain tissue without causing damage. In their study, published in the journal Cell Reports Methods, the group tested bathing brain organoid tissue in candidate chemicals before freezing them using liquid nitrogen. [...] The work involved dipping or soaking brain organoids (brain tissue grown from stem cells) in candidate compounds and then freezing and thawing them to see how they fared. After many attempts, they found one combination of solutions that worked best -- a mix of ethylene glycol, methylcellulose DMSO and Y27632. They named the solution mix MEDY.
The research team then tested MEDY under a variety of conditions to see how well it prevented damage from freezing. The conditions involved changing variables, such as the age of the organoids prior to freezing and how long they were soaked in a MEDY solution. They then allowed the organoids to resume growing after they were thawed for up to 150 days. The researchers found little difference between organoids that had been frozen and those that had not -- even those that had been frozen for as long as 18 months. As a final test, the research team used their technique on a sample of brain tissue obtained from a live human patient and found that it worked just as well.
The research team then tested MEDY under a variety of conditions to see how well it prevented damage from freezing. The conditions involved changing variables, such as the age of the organoids prior to freezing and how long they were soaked in a MEDY solution. They then allowed the organoids to resume growing after they were thawed for up to 150 days. The researchers found little difference between organoids that had been frozen and those that had not -- even those that had been frozen for as long as 18 months. As a final test, the research team used their technique on a sample of brain tissue obtained from a live human patient and found that it worked just as well.
Any volunteers? (Score:1, Funny)
Time to put this sucker to the test. Who's with me?
Re:Any volunteers? (Score:5, Funny)
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Just use the "Defrost" setting on the microwave. No use reinventing the wheel.
It’s ok, this model has a moisture sensor so it can tell the last drop was steam wrung before engaging the secondary crispinator magnetron. Some fancy models even had a microphone to listen for the screams.
Re: (Score:2)
Was Crispinator a Transformer or Decepticon?
Re: (Score:2)
Was Crispinator a Transformer or Decepticon?
I'm putting my bet on "yes."
Re: (Score:2)
Was Crispinator a Transformer or Decepticon?
Also, Crispinator was what Waspinator was called when he got crushed into a cube and burned before he hopped into the reconstitutor to be rebuilt.
lrn 2 nrd.
Re: (Score:2)
Was Crispinator a Transformer or Decepticon?
Also, Crispinator was what Waspinator was called when he got crushed into a cube and burned before he hopped into the reconstitutor to be rebuilt.
lrn 2 nrd.
Well, that's neat. It cut off my whole rant about how Decepticons were Transformers and you should be canceled for mixing that up. Bigot. Next thing you know you'll be asking, "Were they human, or Russian?"
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Was Crispinator a Transformer or Decepticon?
Or a type of Terminator. Either way, probably someone's [wikipedia.org] Halloween costume...
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Apparently the eyeballs are the first to go.
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Probably easier to recover as meat popsicle than as ashes or worm poop. But I'm not an expert.
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Useful knowledge, for after the zombie apocalypse (Score:3)
... For the zombies, at least. Now they won't have to scarf down all the brains at once. They can eat a healthy amount and freeze the rest... when they're hungry again, viola! Fresh, tasty brains straight from the freezer!
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So not only can they have a friend for dinner, they can keep them for breakfast too.
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So not only can they have a friend for dinner, they can keep them for breakfast too.
Just apply a vat and you can eat fried friend brains forever!
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Given your signature, I'm disappointed you didn't post a random Futurama quote.
There must be one related to the thawed-heads-in-jars thing they have.
You joke, but that sounds interesting (Score:1)
Imagine a world of "ethical zombies" that only eat people the brains of people who die of not-murdered-by-zombie causes, eating only the minimum amount of brain tissue per day to survive.
I can imagine this "ethical zombie" trope going in all sorts of directions in fiction. To encourage people to do just that, I am disclaiming any original intellectual property that may be in this post:
This Slashdot post by davidwr dated May 21, 2024 in reply to the Slashdot post numbered 64486911 is marked with CC0 [creativecommons.org]
Too late (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, wait..
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I know a couple who signed up for one of the freeze-me-when-I-die services.
Apparently it's very expensive; he only signed up for his head. I guess if you believe in the Singularity and sci-fi as fact then you believe they'll grow you a new body too. Thankfully she did whole body. She's pretty smokin. The future will appreciate what she's got to offer even if it's just as a food source,
Re: Too late (Score:2)
Re: Too late (Score:2)
Smoking sounds like a painful way to die. I'm not sure what there would be left to freeze, much less reheat
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The brain is frozen several hours after death, giving brain tissue plenty of time to release toxins that destroy it. It might be why so many zombies choose living brains.
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No great loss. They're both a bit on the Dunning Kruger side and in her case only her body has value to the future denizens of earth who I assume will either be cockroaches or zombies.
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'The future will appreciate what she's got to offer even if it's just as a food source,'
The future will call them organ-banks.
Without harm? (Score:2)
ethylene glycol, methylcellulose DMSO and Y27632
Because exposing brain tissue to those chemicals won't harm it. Riiiiight.
Re:Without harm? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well they measured a bunch of stuff like cell debris, patterns of gene activity, proportions of cell types, electrical activity, how the cells develop after being revived. Seems like they indeed can preserve samples of defective tissue with the pathologies intact. "MEDY cryopreservation can preserve the pathological features of fresh human brain tissue with large sizes (2–3 mm)"
Of course our wonderful and trustworthy journalists realize this means their brains could successfully be frozen and thawed, on account of their brain is pathological and smaller than 3 mm.
microwave (Score:2)
31 flavors (Score:3)
I'm so excited (Score:3)
They might be able to thaw out Walt Disney in my lifetime.
(yes, I know they didn't actually freeze Walt Disney. But who cares if we will be able to thaw out a bunch of Alcor Life employees?)
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I told my kids they kept Walt in the freezer next to the hamburgers at the restaurant in Tomorrowland.
They almost believed me.
But if you read the Alcor protocol - holy smokes that's unbelievably gruesome.
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Cryopreservation of a living human would certainly be gruesome, but I don't find it to be particularly objectionable when compared to the other things we do to corpses e.g. autopsy and/or embalming.
This isn't an idle consideration for me. I'm a lifetime member of the Cryonics Institute which uses a similar protocol. I'd prefer Alcor's services, but they are significantly more expensive.
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I plan on becoming a ghost.
Well, put me on a rocket & send me to Trappist (Score:2)
Can't take long from this to fully-functional hibernation chambers. ;-)
But what will the subjects say? (Score:1)
Fun Fact (Score:5, Interesting)
We already know how to freeze and reanimate living organisms. Whole animals, in fact. Guinea pigs, rats, and hamsters have been frozen and resuscitated since the 60s. The secret is to thaw them in the microwave. That wasn't a joke.
The problem is freezing large animals. You can't freeze the core fast enough to prevent ice crystals from forming there. It's just an effect of the square-cube law.
Link [interestin...eering.com]
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True. Cryonic vitrification would actually allow you to hard freeze small animals and (probably) resuscitate them but it would actually make the problem of freezing large animals even harder. It's why you can freeze sperm and embryos just fine but not adults.
From a live human “patient” (Score:2)
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I'm pretty sure it was brain cells taken from a living patient that would otherwise be disposed of as medical waste.
Think brain biopsy material or similar.
Not an entire brain.
A glorious future (Score:3)
Just in time (Score:2)
wasn't freezing the problem? (Score:2)
I thought it was the creation of sharp ice crystals during freezing that was the destructive part?
though the other challenge is how to "jump start" dead cells. I don't think they'll ever find a practical way to do that.
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I thought it was the creation of sharp ice crystals during freezing that was the destructive part?
Apparently you can supercool quickly enough that it avoids ice crystal formation during freezing. No way to thaw fast enough, though, and the ice crystals form then.
I expect the antifreeze cocktail is to prevent ice formation during any stage of the process, freezing or thawing. But I doubt you can perfuse something as large as a human brain effectively. (Thermal contraction during cooling is also a problem).
...this is all theoretical for me, since I haven't tried it myself.
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Mammals (Score:3)
Wake me up when this can be used to freeze and reanimate a mammal like a mouse, and prove it has retained its long term memory (train it on a task then see if it can still perform said task). Then, we are getting somewhere.
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If medical science advanced to the point your intact and living brain can be treated with this novel antifreeze solution in vivo, I suspect we'll be well past the point of needing to.
On the other hand, if you're simply looking to have slices of your brain frozen for science, we apparently now have that covered.
Whose brain? (Score:2)
Abby-something.
Abby Normal.
Meanwhile, (Score:2)
at the CorpSicle plant
I suspect (Score:2)
Walt Disney's brain is quite freezer burned by now
brain deglayvin (Score:2)
ethylene glycol (Score:3)