A start-up is claiming that it will someday be able to download people’s brains as a back-up, at the ultimate price of death.
Company Nectome has announced that it will soon be able to scan the human brain and preserve it, maybe even turning a dead person’s brain into a computer simulation, the BBC reports. However, the process it uses requires a fresh brain – that of someone who has just passed away.
Nectome said that their product is “100% fatal.” According to its company website, Nectome will one day be able to survey the human brain’s connectome – neural connections within the brain – to such an impeccable level that it can reconstruct a deceased person’s memories.
The site states,
Imagine a world where you can successfully map and pinpoint a specific memory within your brain. Today’s leading neuroscience research suggests that it is possible by preserving your connectome.
Nectome is funded by Y Combinator, an organization that mentors new companies in order to prepare them for major backers in the future. Dropbox and AirBnB were both Y Combinator companies.
The US National Institute of Mental Health has also given Nectome a $960,000 grant, because of the “commercial opportunity” the pitch presents. Nectome has reportedly consulted lawyers who are experts on California’s new end-of-life measures.
Nectome intends to work with terminally ill patients to test its product. An embalming process preserves the brain in minute detail, ready for the next step. The team working on the project said that it had already tried its technique on a woman who had just died in Portland, Oregon. But the delay of even a few hours had already compromised the brain. The company will look at someone who intends to die via doctor-assisted suicide as their next test subject.
There is plenty of skepticism from scientists regarding Nectome’s goals, as there is no evidence to date that it is possible to retrieve memories from dead brain tissue.
Despite this, Nectome has launched a waiting list to gain funding, at the price of $10,000, refundable at any time.
