X-Message-Number: 484 From att!compuserve.com!73647.1215 Wed Oct 2 00:24:27 EDT 1991 Date: 01 Oct 91 02:02:29 EDT From: Thomas Donaldson <> Subject: The 28 Sept Fundraising Dinner To all subscribers to Kevin Brown's messages: I am one of those who attended the Alcor Fundraising Dinner for Scientific Research on the 28 of September 1991. The presentations were very start- lingly different from what had been announced; they were dominated by discussion, by Greg Fahy, of his recent studies of 2 points central to our own desires: the damage done by freezing to brain tissue, and the progress of his own vitrification experiments as an alternative to freezing. (I know that in a less strict, nontechnical sense, both "vitrification" and "freezing" would be referred to as "freezing". To understand what Greg said and what I'm reporting, we have to make the distinction. When water or a mixture of water and glycerol (etc ..) FREEZES, it turns into crystals. When it vitrifies, it becomes a substance like glass, with no long-range order and no crystals. This comment is for those who haven't been closely following Greg Fahy's work). 1. Effects of freezing on brain tissue: Greg has been able to get microscope slides of brain tissue which show unequivocally that the effect of ice crystallization is to tear or cut most or even all of the nerve connections. The small crystals are distributed very evenly through most of the tissue frozen; only small patches of cells lie between each crystal, and the crystals form into a novel shape, which seem to be lenticular. That is, brain damage on freezing with current methods (remember, the brains Greg looked at had been treated with cryo- protectant) was almost universal, and included an almost universal cutoff of conncections between individual neurons. The individual neurons, as cells, however, seem to have survived (most cells do survive freezing, as cells). (I personally have spent some time in science reports discussing and documenting reasons why damage even so extensive as this need not wipe out memory. But its repair, regardless, will take a VERY long time). (NEXT MESSAGE DISCUSSES GREG'S >>> SECOND <<<< POINT, WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT) Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=484