17 replies to this topic

[Mind]

Elrond first posted this article in another thread but I think it deserves its own headline.

Dogs re-animated after several hours

The dog's blood was replaced with very cold saline solution. After a few hours the blood was re-introduced with no noticeable side effects. This sounds too good to be true. Does anyone else know about these experiments? I would the think the Cryonics community would be trumpeting the results.

Another point that the article brings up inadvertently is the human preconception of the re-animated dog's mental state. In the title it calls the dogs "zombies". What is up with that? Was the article written by a deeply religious person? I did not read any evidence in this brief article that the dogs suffered any ill effects. Also, what is up with that picture. Isn't enough that they used the word zombie, do they also have to try and scare the crap out of the general public?

[lightowl]

In the title it calls the dogs "zombies". What is up with that? Was the article written by a deeply religious person? I did not read any evidence in this brief article that the dogs suffered any ill effects. Also, what is up with that picture. Isn't enough that they used the word zombie, do they also have to try and scare the crap out of the general public?

I had the same reaction when seeing this article the first time. Does this mean that reanimated humans are zombies too? This is just ridiculous. I guess the popular thought of animals being brought back to life is that its creepy. Also, it probably has very much to do with the editors/writes humor.

SCIENTISTS have created eerie zombie dogs.

That's just a plain lie. And that's the HEADLINE for crying out loud. [:o]

Edited by lightowl, 28 June 2005 - 09:13 PM.

[Clifford Greenblatt]

I read about something a little similar to this sometime around 1971. A man from San Antonio, Texas had an incurable blood disease. As a last ditch effort to save his life his temperature was lowered and his blood was completely replaced with a saline solution. The saline solution was then replaced with new blood. The procedure was a success.

[caliban]

To clarify: This is not news just a piece of bad journalism.

Cooled (not frozen!) dogs with subsituted blood have been revived by said Safar Centre, following a model sucessful in hamsters. Their last published research was 2003.
So much for the science.

But why the rephrasing? Their headline is not "Dogs re-animated after several hours"
but
Boffins create zombie dogs!
which has to be one of the most adorable headlines about scientific reseearch I have seen for a long time. [lol]

[bgwowk]

This so-called story is really, really bad. Clifford is absolutely right that similar treatments were used to treat hepatic coma decades ago. More to the point, dogs were first recovered after 3 hours of total circulatory arrest in 1986

http://www.ncbi.nlm....2887&query_hl=3

Even more to the point, the use of saline as a blood substitute is ridiculous. Saline has no buffers, oncotic support, or intracellular ion balance known to be preferable for hypothermic cold storge. Word on the grapevine is that the Safar Institute was required to study the use of saline as part of its military grants based on the thinking that saline would be more readily available on the battlefield. Scientifically, saline is "a dog" of a cold preservation solution.

---BrianW

[sjvan]

The only point to this story was using the word "zombie" the same week that George A. Romero's latest zombie gore-fest "Land of the Dead" opens in theaters.

[vizikahn]

Have you seen this? What do you think of it?

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940)

This disturbing film records the successful experiments in the resuscitation of life to dead animals (dogs), as conducted by Dr. S.S. Bryukhonenko at the Institute of Experimental Physiology and Therapy, Voronezh, U.S.S.R. Director: D.I. Yashin. Camera: E.V. Kashina. Narrator: Professor Walter B. Cannon. Introduced by Professor J.B.S. Haldane.

http://www.archive.o...s/Experime1940/


Here is also a Snopes forum discussion of the film:
http://msgboard.snop...60;t=000871;p=1

[bgwowk]

prometheus asked

Brian, in your view, is there any merit to this technique?

Sure. But there are far better solutions for the job than saline(!).

What is the maximal period that this or similar techniques could sustain such a suspended state for?

Based on what's been published so far, the limit would seem to be three to five hours near 0 degC depending on whether the cold perfusate is slowly circulated and oxygenated. Nobody has ever gone beyond three hours in a straight circulatory arrest model... so far.

The "zombie" headline, and comments on the Russian dog movie site by people who should know better (like EMTs), just go to show how unprepared our culture is for this kind of technology. It's the 21st century, and people are still steeped in 19th century vitalism, believing that once a certain time limit has passed any revived tissue is just "tissue" and not a real animal or person anymore. Go figure.

---BrianW

[caliban]

Brian you have met the late Dr. Safar haven't you?

[bgwowk]

caliban wrote:

Brian you have met the late Dr. Safar haven't you?

I didn't, but cryonicist Mike Darwin knew him personally.

prometheus wrote:

Aren't they (solutions I said are better) more toxic though?

Not at all. You may be confusing cryoprotectants (solutions intended for sub-zero cryothermic preservation) with organ preservation solutions (solutions intended near-zero hypothermic preservation). There is a whole speciality of cryobiology devoted to developing solutions for hypothermic preservation of transplantable organs such as hearts, livers, kidneys, lungs, etc. These organs are removed from donors and then held and/or shipped on ice for hours until transplantation into recipients. Whole body "suspended animation" as the Safar Center and their predecessors in this field are developing can be viewed as simultaneous hypothermic preservation of all the organs in the body at once. No transplant surgeon in his right mind would preserve an organ with cold saline! Here are just a few problems with saline:

1) No pH buffering to counter lactic acid buildup.

2) No colloid to substitute for serum albumin to keep fluid from escaping from blood vessels into interstitial spaces.

3) No intracellular sodium/potassium balance to reduce intracellular ion disturbances due to inhibited ion pumping and altered cell membrane permeability

4) No metabolic substrate, such as glucose or pyruvate, which for some organs is known to be important.

A host of organ preservation solutions have been developed over decades to deal with these problems, with names like, Viaspan, Hypothermosol, Hextend, Celsior, or Alcor/Cryovita's own MHP-2. Any of these solutions will be better than saline for almost any organ stored at ice temperature. Again, the best proof is that you will never find a transplant surgeon in this day and age using saline to preserve an organ!

In any case it appears that such an intervention could be life-saving. Why the negativity?

I'm angry at the sensational "zombie" headline (and did you notice the accompanying photo?). I'm angry that the story gives no historical background, making it sound like the Safar Center is doing something that's never been done before. And I guess I'm angry at the Safar Center for not persuading their funding sources to let them do this work with a solution more scientifically sensible than saline! I've conversed with experts in this field at Society for Cryobiology meetings about this work, and they just shake their heads.

I support what they are trying to do, but if they succeed clinically it will be despite of saline, not because of it. And it won't be because others didn't come just as far in animal models, even decades sooner. I guess what bugs me is the unfairness of scientists methodically solving this problem years ago getting no public credit, while the Safar Center gets attention for less advanced work. Although I must admit that with that headline, it may not be the kind of attention they anticipated!

----BrianW

P.S. A few months ago I complained about a story about "the world's first nanobot" for similar reasons. It wasn't that I didn't support nanotechnology.

[bgwowk]

The big difference with whole body preservation is that you also have to preserve the brain, which is the most ischemia-sensitive organ in the body. Muscle also tends to go into rigor mortis not long after neurological impairment begins, but this can be chemically prevented.

---BrianW

[bgwowk]

I don't know which solution is best for mitigating cold ischemic injury of the brain, but it sure as heck isn't going to be salt water. Here's an old paper using Hypothermosol that exceeds the Safar Center results

http://www.ncbi.nlm....5538&query_hl=1

BioTime's Hextend has also been used for this purpose

http://www.ncbi.nlm....8122&query_hl=5

and is even beginning to see battlefield use

http://www.ncbi.nlm....3057&query_hl=5

Amusingly, BioTime is a cryonics spin-off company, and according to published reports in Cryonics magazine in the 1980s, Hextend has a history that is traceable to Alcor's dog hypothermia experiments 20 years ago and the MHP-2 blood substitute still used in cryonics today.

---BrianW

[bgwowk]

By the way, here's a much better article on this new Safar Center research. Apparently they did have a breakthrough that they just disclosed at a conference

http://pittsburghliv...l/s_348517.html

At least it's a breakthrough in terms what can be done with saline.

---BrianW

[Set]

I agree Mind, the last thing I want is bad publicity for anything that could preserve life.
I already have fears that organized religion will try and pressure the government to stop life extension.