To preserve that elusive continuity of self, some far-thinking technologists are working on ways to keep your brain going\u2014even beyond death. Let\u2019s call them the \u201cmind savers.\u201d They\u2019re exploring everything from freezing brains in liquid nitrogen to augmenting living ones to uploading our memories to the cloud. Here, we look at six possible paths for keeping your mind going, how feasible they\u2019d be, and what benefits the \u00adpresent-day research might bring\u2014even if cognitive immortality doesn\u2019t pan out.<\/p>\n
![\"""\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Unknown-1.jpg?w=840\")
<\/p>\nHead transplant<\/h3>\n
White\u2019s experiments have been a source of grim fascination ever since. But to a few neuroscientists they\u2019re inspiration, suggesting that one day a human head transplant\u2014or, as some call it, a body transplant\u2014could succeed. <\/p>\n
The idea\u2019s main proponent is Sergio Canavero, a controversial Italian surgeon who, 10 years ago, even claimed he\u2019d found a volunteer in Valery Spiridinov, a computer programmer suffering from a degenerative muscle disease. Spiridinov initially agreed to have his head transferred to the body of a brain-dead donor in China, but he later bowed out of the plan and instead got married. And that might be just as well. Critics say the procedure would be more like murder than medicine. Or, best-case scenario: Volunteers would be left paralyzed and in need of a ventilator for life. <\/p>\n
Canavero says that\u2019s not necessarily true. He claims people\u2019s views on the operation will change once they accept that reconnecting severed spinal cords is already possible. He pointed MIT Technology Review<\/em> to a research article from this past summer that he coauthored with surgeons at Moscow\u2019s Sklifosovsky Research and Clinical Institute for Emergency Medicine. The team cut through the spinal cords of three pigs at a point midway along their backs and then tested whether the severed nerve bodies could be fused back together using a surgical sealant. According to that paper, which appeared in the journal PLOS One<\/em>, all the pigs regained the ability to stand and even walk unsteadily.<\/p>\n Does that mean a head could be attached to a new body and then actually control it? Mainstream researchers aren\u2019t convinced. Gr\u00e9goire Courtine, a spinal rehabilitation specialist at the \u00c9cole Polytechnique F\u00e9d\u00e9rale de Lausanne in Switzerland, says he\u2019s been following Canavero\u2019s claims \u201cwith little respect\u201d and thinks that we should \u201cpay zero attention.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no technology \u2026 capable of such a crazy idea,\u201d Courtine wrote in an email.<\/p>\n Just 12 years after the book came out, artificial-intelligence technology has already brought some of her predictions to \u201clife,\u201d so to speak. Services such as StoryFile, Afterlife AI, and Synthesia allow users to upload their personal information and likeness in order to produce either conversational bots that share their memories or video talking heads that sound (and look) exactly like them. Influencers now let their \u201cAI clones\u201d do their work on TikTok, and some people are even building avatars of their aging parents in order to preserve their personalities.<\/p>\n While this mimicry can produce comical results, unhealthy attachments, or uncanny vibes, the increasing realism of generative AI invites people to emotionally accept the avatars as real beings. That was the case when Rothblatt appeared as a digital avatar during a 2025 event held by the UCLA Department of Communication called \u201cThe Bridge to Humanizing AI.\u201d<\/p>\n Her copy, named Marvatar, was projected on a screen, led the discussions, and talked with the meatspace Rothblatt as an equal, at one point saying, \u201cThe dance isn\u2019t about who leads, but how we move together.\u201d According to the university, attendees were \u201cvisibly moved\u201d and wept \u201cwith wonder\u201d at Rothblatt\u2019s vision of digital equality.<\/p>\n What\u2019s still missing from Rothblatt\u2019s mindclone prediction is evidence that these avatars have\u2014or ever will have\u2014any kind of true self-awareness. (We asked ChatGPT if it\u2019s conscious, and it answered, \u201cProbably not.\u201d) But all that remains a gray zone. Neuroscientists don\u2019t have a clear definition of consciousness, much less a diagnostic test they could apply to an avatar. <\/p>\n Instead, what if the final determination is in the eye of the beholder? Your digital clone might not be<\/em> you. But at some point it might be good enough for me. <\/p>\n So, campy sci-fi film lovers that we are, it got our attention last year when a company called Bexorg started showing journalists actual<\/em> human brains in vats, which it has been acquiring from organ donors soon after death and then \u201crebooting\u201d by infusing them with oxygen-rich artificial blood.<\/p>\n The company claims these \u201cphysiologically intact human brains\u201d will be more useful than animals for drug testing and safer than trying experiments on living volunteers. Add an Alzheimer\u2019s compound to one of these disembodied brains and researchers can then measure exactly what the drug does inside the organ.<\/p>\n Bexorg\u2019s CEO, Zvonimir Vrselja, is \u201csure\u201d that some people would like to restore consciousness to out-of-body brains, but he\u2019s tried to douse such speculation. While they are metabolically active, the company says, the brains have lost all coordinated electrical activity. That means they aren\u2019t conscious\u2014although, just to make sure, the neuroscientists running the experiments add the strong anesthetic propofol to the tissues. <\/p>\n What\u2019s more, right now a brain can be kept \u201calive\u201d outside the body for only about 24 hours. That wouldn\u2019t be much of a second life. Still, efforts are underway to improve the life-support systems. Bexorg says it hopes to eventually keep its brains going for two weeks.<\/p>\n On paper, the goal is to manufacture tissue to graft into the brains of stroke victims, reversing damage and restoring function. Less officially, the project\u2019s existence is a surprise coup for an extreme plan to defeat aging advanced by Jean H\u00e9bert, the neuroscientist leading the program, who argued in his 2020 book, Replacing Aging<\/em>, that we can live longer by replacing our aging brain cells with young ones.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t want to lose our identities. That\u2019s why\u2014according to H\u00e9bert\u2014it would have to happen gradually, in small chunks, so our brains would have time to adapt to the new tissue.<\/p>\n Scientists who applied for the program say H\u00e9bert insisted on a very specific technological approach. While most researchers engineer individual cell types, ARPA-H asked for complex chunks of young, functional cortex\u2014more or less like what you\u2019d find in a developing fetus. \u201cHe wanted to create essentially an embryonic form of cortex that he thought you could somehow graft into an adult brain,\u201d says Marius Wernig, a Stanford University stem-cell researcher who applied.<\/p>\n Skeptics say it\u2019s unknown whether replacement brain chunks will ever properly function as part of your brain\u2014say, by taking over memories. What\u2019s more, it\u2019s still unclear how to manufacture youthful cortex, or what ARPA-H calls \u201cneocortical precursor tissue,\u201d in the lab. One idea is to employ the latest advances in brain organoids. Imagine, if you will, a human cortex grown in a lab dish without a body. <\/p>\n We know that the agency has an aggressive timeline: Over the course of five years, it wants researchers to lay the foundation for the first human tests of replacement cortex. The aim, it says, is to \u201ctake the \u2018permanent\u2019 out of brain damage.\u201d And maybe out of old age, too. <\/p>\n Scientists are already mapping this wiring in simpler animals. Two years ago, Seung took part in analyzing a fly brain that had been cut into paper-thin sheets and imaged with an electron microscope. Then he and his colleagues used image-analysis software to trace 139,255 neurons and about 55 million synapses. The fly map could lead to energy-efficient software that computes the way real brains do, Seung says. <\/p>\n Others believe the ultimate outcome of \u201cconnectomics\u201d research will be what\u2019s called \u201cwhole-brain emulation,\u201d or sometimes just \u201cuploading.\u201d It\u2019s the idea, popular in some quarters of Silicon Valley, that a simulation created from a sliced-up brain could become so detailed that it would reproduce not only a generic intelligence but a particular one, like yours\u2014complete with memories and opinions, and able to live again in a data server somewhere. <\/p>\n Setting aside the question of whether a simulation would really be you, everyone agrees that this technology isn\u2019t coming in time for those of us alive today. A survey of 312 neuroscientists, published in 2025 in PLOS One<\/em>, estimated that human whole-brain emulation wouldn\u2019t happen before 2125.<\/p>\n That long and unpredictable tech horizon helps explain why two US companies, Nectome and Sparks Brain Preservation, are offering to preserve human brains (or bodies) today by infusing them with the same potent chemicals used to \u201cfix\u201d the brains of fruit flies for connectome mapping. The idea: If the fine details of a brain\u2019s structure can be preserved, one day in the far future it might be reanimated. <\/p>\n But there\u2019s a startling twist. Because brain tissue needs to be preserved quickly after a person\u2019s death, both companies say they want to work with people taking advantage of medical aid in dying, now legal in 13 states and Washington, DC. In that procedure, doctors supply a lethal dose of drugs, but it\u2019s the patient\u2014someone with a terminal prognosis\u2014who pushes the plunger. For a fee, the companies say, they can have a preservation team at the ready. So far, the service is not popular. The companies each say they are still awaiting their first aid-in-dying customer. <\/p>\n That\u2019s right: an extra brain.<\/p>\n Recently, we\u2019ve seen inklings of how this might come to pass. In 2024, Science Corporation, in California, unveiled a \u201cbiohybrid\u201d brain-computer interface featuring nerve cells grown on a digital chip. Placed on an animal\u2019s brain, these cells sent out long, thin axons that integrated with the animal\u2019s own neurons. The result: two-way communication from computer to brain, in the brain\u2019s language.<\/p>\n The technology could permit new types of medicine, like an implant that directs brain cells to produce dopamine and thereby treat Parkinson\u2019s. But Max Hodak, the company\u2019s CEO, says it also might count as a new brain part, which he likens to a \u201cbig, externalized cranial nerve.\u201d <\/p>\n Such a device could serve as the connector to Kurzweil\u2019s computerized neocortex in the cloud, giving a living person unlimited extra processing power. Still other entrepreneurs believe if you kept adding biohybrid components to a brain, eventually you could morph it into an immortal machine. <\/p>\n Daniel Burger, founder of the venture-\u00adfunded stealth startup Eightsix Science (its name refers to the 86 billion neurons in a human brain), says this dream could require mixing several of the brain-saving techniques on this list. He thinks we might need brains in vats, affording neuro-\u00adengineers easy access, so they can gradually replace brain parts with biohybrid neural grafts. <\/p>\n The ultimate goal is to migrate your mind into your extra, engineered brain, without ever breaking the continuity of self. \u201cIt\u2019s not the typical \u2018scan, store, simulate,\u2019\u201d says Burger. \u201cI don\u2019t think simulations will be conscious.\u201d He adds, \u201cWe\u2019re saying it\u2019s going to be way more complicated, and it\u2019s probably going to look like gradual brain replacement into a hardware brain.\u201d<\/p>\n Once your mind is hardware, you won\u2019t need a biological body. Instead, you could take up residence in a data center somewhere and perhaps even have backups distributed around the globe. \u201cFrom that point on,\u201d Burger acknowledges, \u201cstuff becomes really crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n #wild #ideas #perpetuating #mind<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you ever thought about what makes you you? Science assures us it has everything…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[2451,2468,14686,2450],"class_list":["post-24082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-ideas","tag-mind","tag-perpetuating","tag-wild"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains.jpg",1200,600,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains-300x150.jpg",300,150,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains-768x384.jpg",640,320,true],"large":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains-1024x512.jpg",640,320,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains.jpg",1200,600,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains.jpg",1200,600,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains-1024x512.jpg",1024,512,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/news678.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/eye-brains-540x340.jpg",540,340,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/news678.top\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news678.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/BRAIN-laptop.png\")
<\/figure>\nMindclones<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/BRAIN-jar.png?w=840\")
<\/figure>\nBrain in a jar<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Unknown-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGradual brain replacement<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/BRAIN-alsobrain.png?w=840\")
<\/figure>\nBrain upload<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.technologyreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Unknown-3.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSynthetic neocortex<\/h3>\n