{"id":810638,"date":"2026-05-20T20:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/810638\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T20:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T20:34:20","slug":"neurosurgeons-are-weirdly-optimistic-about-cryonics-for-life-extension-survey-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/810638\/","title":{"rendered":"Neurosurgeons Are Weirdly Optimistic About Cryonics for Life Extension, Survey Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

The gamble of cryonically preserving one\u2019s own body<\/a> for reanimation somewhere off in the future (or, more frugally, just one\u2019s brain<\/a>) is ultimately a big bet on the increasing ingenuity and benevolence of the human race. It\u2019s the kind of question we often put to science fiction writers, but what do medical professionals think about the state of this technology?<\/p>\n

Neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston at Monash University in Australia wanted to find out, surveying over 300 physicians\u2014including primary care doctors, intensive care providers, neurologists, anesthesiologists, and other specialists. While a little over one in four of these physicians (27.9%) reported that they believed it was \u201cplausible,\u201d or even \u201cvery plausible,\u201d that cryonic preservation could potentially lead to some form of revival for patients one day, the data got really interesting when sliced by medical specialty.<\/p>\n

When asked to weigh the probability that \u201ccritical psychological information\u201d could be adequately preserved by whole brain preservation and revival, neurosurgeons were much more bullish on average, collectively giving the procedure a 72% median estimated probability of success. Zeleznikow-Johnston and his colleague\u2019s entire pool of 334 physicians, by contrast, only granted this futuristic medical intervention a 25.5% median estimated probability of success.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s a reason for this discrepancy, according to Zeleznikow-Johnston, who also serves as an advisor<\/a> to the nonprofit Brain Preservation Foundation. The foundation has been exploring<\/a> a wide variety of techniques beyond the more commonly known strategies like cryogenic freezing, including room-temperature preservation methods via chemical fixation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of physician hesitancy may come from simple unfamiliarity with the scientific basis of modern preservation methods,\u201d Zeleznikow-Johnston explained<\/a> in a press statement. \u201cThe doctors who have actually thought about this\u2014and who regularly sit with dying patients\u2014tend to be more receptive, not less.\u201d<\/p>\n

Improving really long-term memory <\/p>\n

Respondents from most other medical specialties appeared to be more skeptical that a person\u2019s mind could actually be revived sometime after cryonic preservation\u2014with just under half (47%) opining that they thought the notion was unlikely, either \u201csomewhat\u201d or \u201cvery implausible.\u201d But Zeleznikow-Johnston\u2019s team also wanted to know how these doctors might feel about their role in the process of preparing a patient for something like suspended animation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clinical community lacks consensus on these procedures, creating challenges for physicians whose patients inquire about preservation as an end-of-life option,\u201d the researchers wrote in their new study, published<\/a> Wednesday in the open-access journal PLOS One.<\/p>\n

Zeleznikow-Johnston\u2019s team quizzed its respondent-doctors on their medical opinions regarding critical treatment issues that commonly come up in cryonic preservation, whether of a whole human body or just a human brain.<\/p>\n

First, these doctors were asked about the administration of anticoagulants, like heparin<\/a>, which helps prevent the kinds of blood clots that can form following death by heart attack or cardiac arrest. These clots, perhaps obviously, can clog blood vessels in a patient\u2019s body and especially their brains in ways that would make revival years later particularly dangerous. A clear majority of physicians approved of the idea of prescribing heparin to a patient on the verge of death to better facilitate preservation: 70.7% of respondents said this \u201cprobably or definitely should be allowed.\u201d Only 11.7% of the doctors surveyed reportedly disagreed.<\/p>\n

Second, the doctors were probed for their reaction to the legally thorny issues around initiating preservation procedures on a consenting patient while they were still alive. Currently\u2014even for terminally ill patients who have expressly chosen to be preserved\u2014this kind of medical intervention is technically barred by law. Over two in five of the study\u2019s respondents (44.3%) said this sort of procedure should \u201cprobably\u201d or \u201cdefinitely\u201d be legal, but opposition was significant. Over one in four of the doctors surveyed (28.8%) opposed.<\/p>\n

Brain Trust <\/p>\n

Notably, all three of the new survey\u2019s authors work in cryonics. Beyond Zeleznikow-Johnston\u2019s affiliation with the Brain Preservation Foundation, his coauthor Andrew McKenzie works for the Oregon-based nonprofit Sparks Brain Preservation. The study\u2019s third author, Emil Kendziorra, is similarly a shareholder and CEO of Tomorrow Bio, a biostasis provider whose longevity work includes cryonics as well.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the researchers noted that their respondents\u2019 \u201crelatively low probability estimate of 25.5% revival success\u201d likely means their work was not biased in favor of their clear interest in the procedure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The gamble of cryonically preserving one\u2019s own body for reanimation somewhere off in the future (or, more frugally,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":810639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[329456,329457,210,1141,1142,124941,10893,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-810638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-cryonics","tag-futurism","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-medical-innovations","tag-surveys","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116608818558919253","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}