X-Message-Number: 15469
Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2001 04:04:14 -0500
From: Paul Antonik Wakfer <>
Subject: More Scientific Comments

Once more I have felt it necessary to resubscribe and to post to CryoNet
after being informed of what has been transpiring here in the past 10
days and since I last posted and unsubscribed.

I will start by complimenting Jeff Grimes on his insight and his probing
questions which have clearly hit some sore spots. It is always
refreshing and optimistic to see new minds of rationality and
enlightenment appear on Cryonet to counter the massive lassitude to the
even more massive distortions which frequently appear here.

Here are some comments on some recent posts which relate to
cryobiological science.

>From:  - Cryonet #15395
>Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 11:51:53 EST
>Subject: CI procedures

[SNIP]

>In checking the site again, by the way, I noticed that the rabbit brain 
>report was not there. It will be up there within a few days. That was another 
>report by Dr. Yuri Pichugin a couple of years back--a landmark of sorts, a 
>first, as best I can determine. Rabbit brain pieces were perfused with 
>glycerol CPA, stored in liquid nitrogen, then warmed, washed out, and tested 
>for neuronal activity. Coordinated electrical activity in networks of neurons 
>was observed. Since neural net function is presumably one of the most 
>important of all criteria of "viability" for cryonics purposes, this is 
>highly significant and encouraging, although obviously far from conclusive. 
>It may be more important than the K/Na "function" test used on rat brain 
>slices at the INC project.

First, a word about terminology. Neither "viability" nor "neural net"
are terms which have any well defined meaning within the specialties of
neuroscience or neural cryobiology. They are and should only be used as
short-form summaries of the results of an experiment, which results are
expressed elsewhere in accurately and scientifically measurable terms.
It is in this sense only that I and others involved with the Hippocampal
Slice Cryopreservation Project (HSCP) have used the term "viability". 

Presumably what Mr Ettinger means by "neural net function" is the
distributed (inter-neuron) electrical neural activity which is quite
unique to nerve systems. If that is the case then he is quite correct
that a positive result of a test for this would be an even better
indicator of the functionality of brain slices than is the purely
intra-cellular Na/K ratio test. In fact, if one examines the original
plan of the HSCP (see http://neurocryo.org), this was the original aim
of the project and it is still the ultimate goal. Still one must walk
before one runs, and for a number of reason (which I am just now writing
up for placement on the INC website), this proved to be harder than
originally thought and quite premature in the context of the quickly
advancing 21CM cryoprotectant breakthroughs.

However, since full and sufficient documentation in a scientifically
publishable form has never been forthcoming from the experiment to which
Mr Ettinger refers above, it is not possible to assess whether the
oft-stated result of that experiment is true or not. (At least my
searches have never found its publication in a peer-reviewed journal. If
it is so published, please tell me where.)

If the new plans of INC, to hire a neurophysiologist and continue the
HSCP after Yuri Pichugin leaves, are brought to fruition by the receipt
of sufficient funding to join the recent spontaneous donations which
have arrived, then likely within a year or two that test of distributed
electrical slice activity will be performed on hippocampal slices
rewarmed after full low-temperature vitrification.

>If anyone wants a summary of the procedure used on the sheep heads, which 
>became the CI temporary standard, and doesn't want to bother with the detail 
>on the web site, here it is in brief: The CPA is 75% V/V glycerol in a base 
>of buffered Ringer's with Mannitol, at about 45 deg F. One pass. 
>
>Let me emphasize this: I doubt that any critic, including Mr. Grimes, really 
>does want to know the exact details, except to look for debating points. They 
>certainly aren't interested in repeating the work. It is the results that are 
>important, and these have been reported.

It is very clear from such statements as this that Mr. Ettinger has a
limited understanding of the requirements of the scientific method
particularly as applied to biological experiments. The first requirement
of any scientific report is sufficient detail that the experiment can be
fully repeated (ie every important measurement will be reproduced) by
anyone who wishes to do so. This requirement has the same weight of
importance whether or not anyone is actually expected to repeat the
work. Until such detail is forthcoming, it is premature to consider (and
certainly to report) either the validity or the falsity of any
"results". In fact, until such detail is provided (or the experimenters
have obtained a credible reputation from having provided such fully
peer-reviewed results in the past) no result should even be accepted as
having been obtained! Ie. the experiment should correctly be viewed as
"still in progress".

>From:  - Cryonet #15400
>Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 04:16:47 EST
>Subject: Long-term Record

[SNIP]

>I suspect that the Society for Cryobiology has nothing against the 
>prospect of successful reanimation of humans in the future via cold storage 
>in the present.

35 years ago, most cryobiologists would have agreed that perfected
suspended animation of humans was the "holy grail" of cryobiology.
However, for a variety of reasons which are very hard to ferret out (but
a major one of them is clearly the beginning of the actual practice of
cryonics) this early pro-life zeal has so changed that now most of the
old guard would agree with the public statements of more than one of
them that "the idea of extending human life-span is mischievous in the
extreme."

(comments on other posts to follow)

-- Paul --

The Institute for Neural Cryobiology - http://neurocryo.org
A California charitable corporation funding research to
perfect cryopreservation of central nervous system tissue
for neuroscience research & medical repair of the brain.
Voice-mail: 416-968-6291  Fax: 559-663-5511

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15469