Frozen Brains REAWAKEN in Astonishing Medical Breakthrough

As water freezes within the delicate cellular makeup, these crystals expand, puncturing membranes, disrupting the intricate network of neurons and ultimately destroying the connections that underlie thought, memory and consciousness...

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However, a team of neurologists at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in Germany circumvented this problem by turning to a technique known as vitrification...

The team applied this method to thin slices of mouse hippocampus, a region critical for learning and memory, cooling them to -196 degrees Celsius (about -321 degrees Fahrenheit) with liquid nitrogen. 

John Sexton

When they rewarmed the samples, the tissues were undamaged and the mitochondria, which produce energy in the cell, were functioning. Neurons in the brain also seemed to be intact though this was harder to determine since it wasn't a complete brain.

It's pretty amazing that this is possible, but apart from the science fiction aspect to this it could eventually be useful for storing and transporting live organs for transplants.

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