is cryonics plausible?

can the information in the brain last for hundreds of years of freezing with liquid nitrogen?
Answer:
It's plausible in theory--in the distant future. Freezing organs is problamatic if not done properly. If an organ is cooled too slowly, the water in each individual cell is likely to freeze, thus expanding (water is more dense than ice), and rupturing the individual cells' walls. This destroys the entire organ, thus making it useless. This would be a great advancement, especially in the medical industry in terms or organ donation.In terms of brains, whether or not the information would be able to be transferred if there ever was a brain transplant, and if there ever will be a brain transplant are an entirely different aspect (and even if it's ethical is an entire different discussion).If you were actually going to preserve something like this in liquid nitrogen, you wouldn't actually freeze the water in each cell. You would actually do what is called vitrification. You cool the substance down so fast that it is impossible to freeze, thus avoiding the problem with rupturing cells.Theoretically the latter is feasable, but as far as I know isn't routlinely done on an entire organs (but it is done commonly with individual cells since they are much smaller and easier to cool uniformly and much quicker). Think about the need to get organs for donation transported quickly to the patient--this is because they aren't frozen and only have a limited time where they will still be usable. Also, thawing such organs also complicates the matter also.

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Probably. If you flash freeze the brain, all of the connections between neurons and the positions of the ions, etc, should remain the same. And that's how the brain stores its information, by the connections between its neurons. Look up 'neural net' to find out more about it.

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The trick is to replace brain water with an anti-freeze solution as soon as possible after legal death is declared. Just because the heart stops doesn't mean that the brain cells are dead, and brains can be perfused up to a half hour after death (not just 6 minutes). Perfusion under these conditions results in brain structure being well preserved as evidenced by electron microscopes. At cryogenic temperature (below minus 100 degrees C) molecular motion becomes very slow. Below minus 130 degrees C there is almost no change for hundreds of years.

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single organ freezing is possible and has been successfully done may times. whole body freezing is harder and may not be currently feasible. the brain is fragile, and the freezing process finicky. get it a bit wrong and bye bye brain, body, everything, it don't work.

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