Suspended animation is a fictional plot device used in many movies where the subject wakes up after an induced "hibernation" or "suspension". Examples include Han Solo, Khan, Avatar, Austin Powers, Captain America, Buck Rogers, etc. This is fiction. There is broad scientific consensus that suspended animation technology would be so incredibly complex that it could not possibly be developed in any of our lifetimes. Revival is absolutely impossible in the near future, so we're focussed instead on the much more modest goal of preserving the intricate structure of all the moledules in the brain with current technology.

 

We're not at all interested in suspended animation, although many scientists are easily confused into thinking that we are. One reason for this confusion is that there are a wide range of opinions within the brain preservation community. There is a subset of people who actually are interested in suspended animation, and they talk about things like organ banking, reversible preservation, nanotechnology, etc. Many who are signed up for Cryonics would fall into this category. That's not us. We are most certainly not proposing that we can revive anyone by simply warming them up. The cells are not viable.

 

Brain Preservation is broken down into two distinct phases which are discussed in more detail at the bottom of Scientific Basis.

Phase I: Structural preservation that we are able to perform with current technology.

Phase II: Reconstruction of memories using very advanced Future Technology. 

 

Viability refers to the ability of living cells to recover spontaneously.  This could never happen in brain preservation because viability is always lost very early in the process.  Viability might eventually be important in suspended animation, but structural preservation is our only goal. For example, irreversible chemical preservation techniques are desirable because they result in better final structural preservation, even though viability is lost sooner.

 

Toxicity is when chemicals injure or kill a living organism.  We use formaldehyde chemical fixation, which immediately halts all biological activity.  It is, by definition, toxic, but that label is meaningless in the context of attempting to preserve structure rather than viability.