This technique works on an acute timescale of half an hour to an hour or two, and slows the rate of injury accumulation and helps eliminate reperfusion injury. I’m not quite happy with calling it suspension. It’s basically an attempt to replicate what’s already been done for some time in delicate brain surgery in less controlled conditions. I don’t think it has anything to do with more speculative longer term things like cryonics.
I’m happy calling the stuff done for delicate brain surgery ‘suspension,’ but I’m not very careful with my medical vocabulary. Is there some distinguishing feature you think it lacks?
I don’t think it has anything to do with more speculative longer term things like cryonics.
The people who are doing this are quick to disassociate themselves from scifi things- if they don’t even like the name suspended animation, then they’re surely not going to like a comparison to cryonics. But this becoming a routine response to extreme trauma will make cryonics seem a more sensible option to more people, and hopefully the things learned in doing this will lead to better cryonics practice (and, as I stated before, hopefully this will legitimize suspending people whose blood vessels we know are clear, rather than corpses whose blood vessels are in an unknown state).
This technique works on an acute timescale of half an hour to an hour or two, and slows the rate of injury accumulation and helps eliminate reperfusion injury. I’m not quite happy with calling it suspension. It’s basically an attempt to replicate what’s already been done for some time in delicate brain surgery in less controlled conditions. I don’t think it has anything to do with more speculative longer term things like cryonics.
I’m happy calling the stuff done for delicate brain surgery ‘suspension,’ but I’m not very careful with my medical vocabulary. Is there some distinguishing feature you think it lacks?
The people who are doing this are quick to disassociate themselves from scifi things- if they don’t even like the name suspended animation, then they’re surely not going to like a comparison to cryonics. But this becoming a routine response to extreme trauma will make cryonics seem a more sensible option to more people, and hopefully the things learned in doing this will lead to better cryonics practice (and, as I stated before, hopefully this will legitimize suspending people whose blood vessels we know are clear, rather than corpses whose blood vessels are in an unknown state).