X-Message-Number: 5515
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Re: AP Timothy Leary article synopsis & ponderings
Date: 31 Dec 95 20:25:23 GMT
Message-ID: <>
References: <4c6kbq$>

In <4c6kbq$> Randy Smith <> writes:

>The article closes with some intriguing and quite possibly profound 
>statements by Leary:

>"The most interesting time of human life, I think, is when your heart 
>stops, and for between two and 15 minutes, your brain is still running. I 
>think the most interesting part of my life is going to happen in those 2 
>to 15 minutes. Because time doesn't exist then."

	As I recall, the brain shuts down completely (flat EEG) less
than one minute after cardiac arrest.  With current technology, it
can usually be revived if blood flow is restored a couple of minutes
later.  The first response of an ischemia-injured brain when blood
flow is restored is a storm of electrical activity known as 
"excitotoxicity."  How much of so-called Near Death Experiences
occurs during the few seconds before the brain stops, during the
trickle-flow of manual CPR, or during the excitotoxic revival
interval I do not know.

	In any case, I'm sorry to report that it's all academic where 
cryonics is concerned.  Cryonics (or any procedure that stops the
brain completely) can only preserve long-term memories.  Memories
that are only a few minutes old exist as transient electrical
impulses (like dynamic RAM in a computer) before they are converted
to physical changes in synapses (like disk storage) over the course
of several hours.  This is vividly demonstrated in patients who
undergo deep anesthesia, protracted ischemia, or electro-convulsive
therapy, who typically lose several hours of memory prior to the
event.  You might have the greatest NDE of your life (an oxymoron?)
during your cryopreservation, but the memory of it will not survive
the procedure. 

	It is true that some cryonics patients (like the one 
recently done by BPI for CryoCare) enjoy a couple hours of
high-quality cardio-pulmonary support following cardiac arrest.
While this may theoretically be long enough to allow consolidation
of long-term memory, the anesthesia used during the procedure would
probably inhibit the consolidation process.

***************************************************************************
Brian Wowk          CryoCare Foundation               1-800-TOP-CARE
President           Your Gateway to the Future        
   http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/

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