Brains in Jars

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Bubblecar

Registered Senior Member
It's been a sci-fi cliche for over a century - the living brain suspended in a glass vessel of amniotic-type fluid, with curly wires coiling out of the lid, plugged into various life-support gadgets, & usually some sort of voice machine with valves flashing in unison with the truncated being's anguished monologues...

How feasible is this idea, in 2004? Rather than transplanting a brain into another body, keeping it alive in a high-tech jar environment?
 
Bubblecar said:
It's been a sci-fi cliche for over a century - the living brain suspended in a glass vessel of amniotic-type fluid, with curly wires coiling out of the lid, plugged into various life-support gadgets, & usually some sort of voice machine with valves flashing in unison with the truncated being's anguished monologues...

How feasible is this idea, in 2004? Rather than transplanting a brain into another body, keeping it alive in a high-tech jar environment?
Click to expand...
In 2004...not very. I am no expert in this area but keeping a brian in a jar doesn't sound too sound of an option. Unless the fluid can fullfill all the requirements of a cranium of a natural organic body (blood flow to provide oxygen, maintaining chemical balance etc).

If they did want to keep a brain alive I could see scientists storing the brain in a pool of oxygenated blood with lab grown nerves to maintain function...but I am taking a far out guess here.
 
Keeping the brain alive would be difficult to do but not impossible in todays world I believe. The big problem would be communicating with it since all nerve endings are severed.If those nerve endings could be connected to voice synthesizers or the optic nerve to CCD's that could see, it may be possible to communicate. But why communicate with the brain alone, it can't walk around and do things with anyone. It would be very static and troublesome to keep alive in the jar. Would you enjoy living like that if you were in the jar? I wouldn't because I wouldn't feel, touch or be able to really "live".
 
"It would be very static and troublesome to keep alive in the jar. Would you enjoy living like that if you were in the jar?"

Well, the point of the exercise would presumably be to keep healthy brains alive after the demise of the rest of the body due to old age, disease etc.

Advanced computer/ brain interfaces would eventually be developed that would enable the mind to not only communicate in many ways with others, but inhabit a vast range of "virtual environments" in which it would be provided with a body, senses etc. Its life as such may end up being a good deal more vivid & varied than it was before the brain was extracted from the body.
 
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Well, the computer interface stuff may be well into the future, but the point is that if we can keep brains in jars alive indefinitely with technology not far removed from what's presently available, the brains' "lifestyles" can gradually improve as the technology becomes available.
 
I think we have to keep in mind that the body has a function which the brain cannot provide for itself.

1.One of which would be stimulation.

2.The other one would be oxygen, waste and nutrient supply.

3.Another would be defense against 'intruders.'

The question is if we could substitute any of these? Possibly for a short while. On the long run ... probably not.

I think the main problem with the human brain would be its size. One could easily excise an embryonic mouse brain and grow it in vitro for a short while. That is because it is small and nutrients and oxygen might be able to diffuse. For an adult mouse brain this might already prove to be difficult. I think most researchers work with brain slices to prevent these problems.
Now think about the human brain! It is gigantic! No way would it be possible to solve these problems with diffusion. There would be the requirement for active transport. That probably means we have to have an intact circulation system; connect all the bloodvessels and such and have an artificial circulatory system installed. That would be impossible right now.
 
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