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MIT Technology Review

MIT Technology Review

This researcher wants to replace your brain, little by little

MIT Technology Review
Summary
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Jean Hébert is a new hire with the US Advanced Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H ) He's been exploring ways to “progressively” replace a brain by adding bits of youthful tissue made in a lab.

The idea has a halo of plausibility since there are already liver transplants and titanium hips, artificial corneas and substitute heart valves.

Jean Hébert is an established scientist who is willing to propose extreme steps to avoid death.

He says time affects all of our organs and cells and even degrades substances such as elastin , one of the molecular glues that holds our bodies together.

He's in favor of gradual brain replacement for elderly subjects, as well as transplant of their heads onto the bodies of “non-sentient” human clones.

One challenge is how to manufacture the replacement brain bits, or what he calls “facsimiles” of neocortical tissue.

To design the youthful bits of neocortex, Hébert has been studying brains of aborted human fetuses 5 to 8 weeks of age .

He's joining ARPA-H and closing his lab at Albert Einstein .