[Link] Petition on brain preservation: Allow global access to high-quality brain preservation as an option rapidly after death

post by Mati_Roy (MathieuRoy) · 2023-02-26T15:56:55.656Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

This is a link post for https://www.change.org/p/allow-global-access-to-high-quality-brain-preservation-as-an-option-rapidly-after-death

Contents

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I've put a few extracts I found notable below, but check out the URL for the full text and to sign the petition. Note that signing the petition doesn't mean you necessarily want to preserve your own brain.

Extracts I found notable:

In 2016, the Brain Preservation Foundation Prize was awarded for a scalable technique that – for the first time – demonstrably preserved the key features of brain structure that neuroscientists know are involved in learning and memory.

[...]

Our best current models suggest that carefully preserving the pattern of connections within the human brain, i.e. our "connectome," alongside essential biomolecules that regulate those connections, will allow the retention and later automated reconstruction of unique and valuable information about a person’s identity, including their long-term memories.

[...]

Here, we are performing advocacy for brain preservationists. We call upon the global scientific, medical, and legal communities, as well as local and national governments, to immediately make changes in norms, policy, and laws in end-of-life medicine and care, to allow brain preservation to be accessible as an elective procedure at death, and for this procedure to be regulated so that it is done in a competent, sustainable, and humane way.

[...]

Currently, with our existing medico-legal frameworks, elective brain preservation is often delayed after death, in ways that people cannot opt out of, even after legal and medical preparations. This delay leads to unnecessary decomposition of the brain, and may irreparably damage the structures that contain our memories. These restrictive laws must be changed with haste.

[...]

We also understand that brain preservation can be expensive and that many of the existing methods are not currently attainable for all people at the end of life. We call upon scientists, technologists, and physicians to develop low-cost options, and for governments and philanthropists to make the necessary funds available so that all individuals who wish to pursue brain preservation at the end of life will be able to have access to it.

PS: I provide free cryonics sign up support (and a 50% discount for Alcor's 1st year of membership); you can email me at mathieu.roy.37@gmail.com.

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