Neuroscientists are trying to find the key to immortality after a $100,000 cash prize was offered to anyone who can successfully preserve a human brain for revival.
The competition held by The Brain Preservation Foundation hopes to develop a method to bring a brain back after a person dies.
Their approach is also the opposite of existing cryonic human-preservation services.
The Foundation challenges neuroscientists to start with an effective animal model, with a long-term goal of creating a successful surgical procedure that can completely and inexpensively preserve a whole human brain.
The brain must be able to be preserved for more than 100 years in a way that keeps its functions running normally and efficiently.
Two competitors are attempting the daunting feat.
The first is Shawn Mikula: a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany.
The other is 21st Century Medicine, based in the Fontana, California.
Mikula is pursuing a chemical fixing process that he's been testing on whole mouse brains.
The 21st Century Medicine company has taken a cryopreservation approach to their technique, which sees the brain being infused with a fixative agent and soaked in an ice-preventing chemical.
The company used this method to preserve a whole rabbit brain.
'I am virtually certain that mind uploading is possible.
'We are destined to eventually replace our biological bodies and minds with optimally designed synthetic ones,' neuroscientist and Brain Preservation Foundation president Ken Hayworth said.
Hayworth said that a time when humans will be able to bring their brains back after death is years away.
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