Buzz
For many, the thought of decapitation evokes sheer terror—a head severed from its body, a body left without a head! It’s an unsettling concept, yet the idea that the right moment and method of decapitation might actually offer a chance at life is far from absurd.
In cryonics—the experimental practice of preserving 'deceased' individuals at extremely low temperatures with the hope of future revival—the term 'neuropreservation' or 'neurosuspension' is used. This approach, first conducted by the cryonics organization Alcor in 1976, involves storing only the head of a person, instead of the whole body, in these preservation processes.
As someone who has committed to cryonic preservation (specifically, the 'neuro' head-only approach), I feel deeply invested in this science, despite its speculative nature. My new book Frozen to Life: A Personal Mortality Experiment explores the revolutionary science and philosophy surrounding the brain, mind, and 'self.' It also recounts my personal journey and the careful deliberation behind this significant decision.
SUSPENDED HEAD, SUSPENDED SELF?
Most philosophers (and scientists) argue that the 'self'—or whatever term you use to describe what makes you you) is a byproduct of the physical operations of the brain. Thus, the brain is the key physical component that technicians must preserve after death if your sense of self is ever to experience the warmth of life again. And it’s far simpler to keep your brain intact inside its skull than to attempt its removal, which could lead to irreversible damage.
Of course, many cryonicists opt for full-body preservation. For non-cryonicists, that choice is often less unsettling than preserving just the head; social taboos surrounding body dismemberment remain strong. But for me, the 'neuro' method makes perfect sense. A head is far smaller than a full body, making it both cheaper and easier to preserve and store efficiently (for instance, it requires only one-tenth the amount of liquid nitrogen). While revival from full-body preservation might seem more likely, the real technical hurdle in cryonic revival is not about providing a new body—it’s about the far more complex aspects of reanimation.
HOW THE PROCESS WORKS
To optimize the chances of a successful preservation, it’s best to pass away close to a cryonics facility. If you're signed up with Alcor, Scottsdale, AZ, is an ideal location for your final moments. Once a doctor pronounces you brain-dead, Alcor’s standby team springs into action. First, they place your body in an ice bath to begin cooling it and slow down cell degeneration. Next, they attach a 'thumper'—a mechanical chest compression device—to keep blood circulating and oxygenating the brain. Anticoagulants like heparin are introduced intravenously to prevent blood clotting. At this stage, the team deems you 'stabilized' and ready for transportation back to Alcor’s main facility.
Surgeons then cool the body further, bringing it down to about 0°C before performing the neuroseparation procedure (severing the neck to remove the head). They drain the blood and replace it with a 'cryoprotectant' solution, which includes antifreeze-like chemicals. After attaching a monitoring device and placing the cephalon (head) in a 'neurocan,' the head undergoes a multi-phase cooling process, ultimately reaching the final storage temperature of -196°C.
HEAD OF GLASS
To preserve a brain's structure and keep it potentially viable, freezing it alone is insufficient. Instead, the brain must be 'vitrified.' Since blood plasma is water-based, ice crystals form and rupture cells during freezing. A high concentration of cryoprotectant and careful cooling enable the brain's tissue to reach a smooth, glass-like vitrified state.
But what purpose does a vitrified head serve? While it’s true that we can’t resurrect the dead, and no living human head has ever been successfully reattached to a donor body, we’re not talking about what’s possible with today's technology. We’re considering the idea of placing a human brain 'on pause,' with the hope that future advancements in technology and medicine will allow it to be 'rebooted' when the time comes.
To achieve this, future methods might involve cutting-edge nanomedicine. While repairing fine-scale damage in the brain's wiring—what neuroscientists refer to as the connectome—is currently beyond our capabilities, who knows what tomorrow's science might bring? A brain, fully repaired and revived, could find itself interfacing with a newly cloned body (or perhaps a cybernetic one, or even a fully immersive virtual body).
SPECTRUMS, NOT SPECTRES
A recent New York Times article shared the story of Kim Suozzi, who passed away in 2013 at the age of just 23 from brain cancer, and was neuropreserved at Alcor. While she was raising funds for her cryonic preservation, her father disapproved, telling her, 'We don’t get to live forever, Kim.' However, cryonicists generally don’t expect to 'live forever.' We view life and death not as an absolute divide but as part of a spectrum, where true death is the total loss of the brain’s information-carrying ability. Cryptographer Ralph Merkle introduced the term 'information-theoretic death' to describe this final point on the life/death continuum.
The conversation about cryonics is only beginning to take shape. We’re so accustomed to the traditional ways of handling death that the notion that the deceased might not be gone for good can be quite jarring. Still, perhaps it's time for a more nuanced perspective on death. After all, people once believed that death occurred as soon as the heart stopped, a notion that has since been proven tragically flawed.
The concept of the soul is another hurdle when reconsidering death. If you believe that some essential, non-material part of you persists after death, then why would you go through all the effort of freezing your head in the first place?
