X-Message-Number: 5806
From:  (Brian Wowk)
Newsgroups: uk.legal,sci.cryonics,sci.life-extension
Subject: Re: Death (was Donaldson MR and Miss Hindley)
Date: 22 Feb 96 07:51:47 GMT
Message-ID: <>

References: <> <>


In <> Marshall Rice <>
writes:

>With respect, I think a better analogy is with the data held in RAM, or any
>other active storage device. If you switch the machine off, the data is lost 
>for good.

>Our brains are active storage devices, not passive ones like floppy discs, 
>which can be kept in a cupboard until needed.

	Nope.  Only short-term memory is RAM.  Long-term memory is PROM.
This is not speculation, but medical fact.

	"We know that secondary memory does not depend on continued
         activity of the nervous system, because the brain can be
         totally inactivated by cooling, by general anesthesia, by
	 hypoxia, by ischemia, or by any other method and yet
         secondary memories that have been previously stored are
         still regained when the brain becomes active once again.
         Therefore, secondary memory must result from some actual
         alterations of the synapses, either physical or chemical."

		--- Textbook of Medical Physiology, by Arthur C.
                    Guyton, W.B. Saunders Company, 1986.

This is borne out clinically when patients recover without amnesia
after hour-long hypothermic arrest ("cold meat on a table") 
aneurism surgery, or when dogs recover after 6 hours of similar
treatment (a world record, currently held by BioPreservation,
CryoCare's contract cryonics service provider).
 
***************************************************************************
Brian Wowk          CryoCare Foundation               1-800-TOP-CARE
President           Your Gateway to the Future        
   http://www.cryocare.org/cryocare/

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