This is something I’ve wondered about for a while. My understanding is that cryonic preservation works much better if your body is perfused with cryo-protectant using the existing heart and blood vessels to get the current best known mixture (that minimizes freezing damage) to all the nooks and crannies of the brain, and at the same time to all the nooks and crannies of the rest of the body.
I don’t understand the details that well, but I think they put a shunt into a major vein or artery to take out blood and put in the cryo-protectant and then pump your heart. This might do something to the organs to make them less fit for donation?
This history of Alcor research from 1977 to 1994 indicates that dogs could be perfused, held at 4 Celsius for several hours, and then have their blood run back in so they could be revived. They reported no apparent brain damage so it is likely that the cryop-protectant doesn’t do a lot of damage to organs if it does very much. My minimally educated guess would be that organ donation is still possible, just slightly more complex so that the procedures satisfice for a greater number of positive outcomes than before.
This is something I’ve wondered about for a while. My understanding is that cryonic preservation works much better if your body is perfused with cryo-protectant using the existing heart and blood vessels to get the current best known mixture (that minimizes freezing damage) to all the nooks and crannies of the brain, and at the same time to all the nooks and crannies of the rest of the body.
I don’t understand the details that well, but I think they put a shunt into a major vein or artery to take out blood and put in the cryo-protectant and then pump your heart. This might do something to the organs to make them less fit for donation?
This history of Alcor research from 1977 to 1994 indicates that dogs could be perfused, held at 4 Celsius for several hours, and then have their blood run back in so they could be revived. They reported no apparent brain damage so it is likely that the cryop-protectant doesn’t do a lot of damage to organs if it does very much. My minimally educated guess would be that organ donation is still possible, just slightly more complex so that the procedures satisfice for a greater number of positive outcomes than before.