Seperating the brain from the body
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Cadwaller
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:12 am Posts: 93
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
Duh102 wrote: You don't need red blood cells, you just need oxygen and fluid in which to pass other chemicals. In reference to crocodile icefishes: "Their blood is transparent because they have no hemoglobin and/or only defunct erythrocytes" [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_icefish/url] Yeah, I guess you're right, just found this awesome thing on wikipedia! The only thing I'm wondering though is, why do humans and most vertebrates have a complex respiratory system if they could instead just absorb oxygen through their skin like this animal? I guess if the brain were put in a vat of highly oxygenated water that would allow it to absorb oxygen without drying out, though i'm not sure if cells in the human body are really designed to receive oxygen without the aid of red blood cells.
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Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:09 am |
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Exalion
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:59 am Posts: 1726 Location: NSW, Australia
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
GloveDude wrote: Ah ha but you all forgot the most important part. Your energy levels are bound to your body... You get rid of your energy you die. The brain can't actualy be seen apart from the body because your energy is anchored to your body as a whole exept legs and arms you can loose those. Get rid of your torso or your head and your energy is seperated from your body and niether can survive without one another. If you say energy doesn't exist go ask your nearest physics teacher.-not that anyone actualy would say energy doesn't exist because thats like saying the earth doesn't have a core. Dude, what? Lets have more science less Yoga theory. Brains need oxygen, carried in some sort of blood (see Duh's post on substitutes). That is all. Although, you'd want to give the brain some sort of input/output, or it will go insane VERY QUICKLY. I suggest something to do with the optical nerve, so one can watch TV while they set everything else up
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Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:19 am |
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411570N3
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 10:26 am Posts: 4074 Location: That quaint little British colony down south
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
Cadwaller wrote: The only thing I'm wondering though is, why do humans and most vertebrates have a complex respiratory system if they could instead just absorb oxygen through their skin like this animal? Because in an evolutionary context, there was never any specific pressure to form this system for the vertebrates.
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Fri Dec 04, 2009 1:24 pm |
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Duh102
happy carebear mom
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:40 am Posts: 7096 Location: b8bbd5
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
Cadwaller wrote: The only thing I'm wondering though is, why do humans and most vertebrates have a complex respiratory system if they could instead just absorb oxygen through their skin like this animal? Likely having a dedicated respiratory system is more efficient. As a rule of thumb, a biological system is generally more efficient if it's main task is it's only task. So say the gastrointestinal system, who's main purpose is to break down food into base components for easier absorption. It is much more efficient than an amoeba's, who's entire body functions as GI system, skin, heart, nervous system, etc.
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Fri Dec 04, 2009 2:39 pm |
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carriontrooper
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2009 12:27 pm Posts: 813 Location: Yogyakarta, Indonesia. A slice o' paradise.
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
Cadwaller wrote: The only thing I'm wondering though is, why do humans and most vertebrates have a complex respiratory system if they could instead just absorb oxygen through their skin like this animal?
From that wiki page... "This works because water can dissolve the most oxygen when it is coldest." This means we (or our disembodied brain) must be dipped in arctic-ice-cold water to be able to absorb dem oxygen. Human brains can't think that good when they're freezing, though. Also, some frogs absorb oxygen through their moist skin... but this has another water problem. They get dehydrated, they suffocate. Thus a complex respiratory system enable us to spread to all corners of the globe. They absorb oxygen without dehydrating us in the process... or at least, not as fast as skinbreathers.
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Fri Dec 04, 2009 4:58 pm |
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01271
Joined: Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:14 am Posts: 31 Location: Vancouver island, BC
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
according to DR the brain present in the game is not necessarily human. that being said if we absorbed oxygen from our skin it would imply a very complicated circulatory system at the epidermis (skin). this would cause many problems (in order of least to most serious): 1. the skin is not close to the heart (compared to the lungs) 2.your skin would have to be especially thin to allow oxygen to diffuse through 3.if you got cut you would piss blood out your wound from the milions of capillaries that were sliced open
Adressing the blood problem: it might be possible to keep some bone marrow alive inside to produce red blood cells for the brain.
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Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:00 pm |
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Cadwaller
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:12 am Posts: 93
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
01271 wrote: Adressing the blood problem: it might be possible to keep some bone marrow alive inside to produce red blood cells for the brain.
Yeah, thats what I said a few posts ago about the hemopoetic tissues, ie. bone marrow. You would also need a spleen and liver attached as they are also involved in the blood cell making process. Doing this would probably be the best way to supply oxygen to the brain, because, as carriontrooper said, the brain wouldn't fare too well in freezing water. The reason why oxygenated fluid wouldn't work as well as red blood cells would be because oxygenated fluid can't selectively decide which cells to supply oxygen to, instead, it would oxidize the first veins it flowed through alot, which you wouldn't want, and not supply enough oxygen to the parts of the brain further down the veins. Red blood cells, on the other hand, only give oxygen to cells which are depleted of oxygen, instead of just oxidizing everything around them like an oxygen-rich fluid would do. Another important role which red blood cells play is removing carbon-dioxide from cells depleted of oxygen. Oxygen-enriched fluid couldn't do this.
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:59 am |
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TomThom
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:54 am Posts: 139
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Re: Seperating the brain from the body
alright, so, i think this is it. correct me if i'm wrong. we need artificial carriers for the red blood cells. they need to carry oxygen. their issue? they die too quickly. solution? extended lifetime of the cells and a bone marrow source that would constantly clone itself(for when it gets too old to be efficient[kept in cold storage until used]) to make up for the dead. and then the blood also needs to be cleaned, so i guess we would also need a dialysis machine?
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 1:49 am |
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Cadwaller
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2009 1:12 am Posts: 93
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Re: Seperating the brain from the body
Heh, this gets more and more complex, eventually were going to need a whole human body to operate this brain!
I don't understand what you mean by "we need artificial carriers" for the red blood cells though. If you had a biological system of generating, that would be self sustaining and wouldn't need artificial carriers.
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 3:28 am |
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Duh102
happy carebear mom
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:40 am Posts: 7096 Location: b8bbd5
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Re: Seperating the BRAIN from the Body
Cadwaller wrote: The reason why oxygenated fluid wouldn't work as well as red blood cells would be because oxygenated fluid can't selectively decide which cells to supply oxygen to I'm pretty sure red blood cells don't select either. It goes down to a matter of diffusion. When oxygenated blood passes by cells, it releases oxygen and absorbs carbon dioxide because there is a higher concentration of oxygen in it than in the surrounding fluid (the cells take in oxygen through active processes to the best of my knowledge) and the opposite is true with carbon monoxide. So, any fluid that is capable of carrying both carbon monoxide and oxygen can substitute for red blood cells, though it will not have as many useful functions such as vessel dilation and clotting properties.
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 3:38 am |
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TomThom
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:54 am Posts: 139
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Re: Seperating the brain from the body
i meant artificial because of the improvements to the blood cells. now, about preventing brain atrophy...
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 7:25 am |
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PhantomAGN
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:40 am Posts: 610 Location: Deep below The Map of Mars
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Re: Seperating the brain from the body
What the ♥♥♥♥ is this ♥♥♥♥? This thread is hard to read without hemorrhaging my sanity from every orifice. We can already replace the heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, ♥♥♥♥, we can replace a lot of the torso. Also ears, (badly) eyes, and soon tongues. Fleshy bodies are fine, and if you know any biology, more effective for the (kilo) calorie than comparable mechanical prosthetics. However, the big advantage to a prosthetic is the inherent modularization of the human form. That is to say, once you fix a heart once, you can usually fix that new heart in a more routine way. Machines are more easy to predict inversely proportionate to their complexity, and a human heart is vastly more complicated than a peristaltic pump.
Glovedude, I think you are getting terminal shock confused here, as you do not need an organic heart to survive. There is a nerve response to your heart stopping, but it's not fatal (though usually really sucky, thus heat attack victims passing out). My grandfather's getting pretty close to triple digits, and has heart, ear, and eye issues. He's had a titanium plate installed on his skull, and an internal hearing aid. It's pretty freaking awesome; he can now plug his DS right into his head. His increasingly painful heart attacks are not.
I'm taking a med class in college now, just because I felt like it, and it was practically free. We spent three days discussing this out of our textbooks, after a small group made it into a big debate. In the end we concluded that humans will probably retreat from our physical bodies only if we've totally screwed over the world outside, as there are too many things that the flesh allows for that would be hard to emulate initially. Obviously, that will change for the better.
Damn, writing this sapped time I'll never see again.
Edit: Now, to go the other direction, why not focus on first understanding how our flesh works more completely, and then producing cloned flesh replacements? With a little genetic tweaking, we can all be blood type O, perfectly moddable, and have powerful symbiotic bacteria for making the most out of our digestive tract. Imagine, a cut sealing itself because your red blood cells have the new feature of extending flagella and tying together, rather than coagulating slowly. You might be able to sustain more grievous wounds without dying of blood loss. Or harness the awesomeness that is the virus particle! Genomic patches may be distributed in viral form, ready for injection and assimilation. For instance, vaccination by injecting T Cells with a modification for the immune system, to better fight a newly discovered disease.
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 11:10 am |
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Exalion
Joined: Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:59 am Posts: 1726 Location: NSW, Australia
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Re: Seperating the brain from the body
Now he is talking.
Rather than removing the fiddly organics we don't understand and replacing them with more simple machines, we embrace the efficiency of biotechnologies (no, not yoghurt) and make ourselves indestructible and immortal THAT way.
It is possible, just a lot trickier.
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:16 pm |
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PhantomAGN
Joined: Mon Jun 29, 2009 2:40 am Posts: 610 Location: Deep below The Map of Mars
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Re: Seperating the brain from the body
Oh, I don't know about more efficient, but probably cheaper to grow in a lab out of gravy, and then recycle biomass with more biomass. There will, however, be huge losses in energy transfer.
Also more flammable.
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:28 pm |
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Duh102
happy carebear mom
Joined: Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:40 am Posts: 7096 Location: b8bbd5
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Re: Seperating the brain from the body
I respect your position, and it makes sense, but I still want my robotic body with nipple lasers.
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Sat Dec 05, 2009 5:47 pm |
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