Can Our Brains Become Immortal? Writing for The Chronicle
Review, Evan R. Goldstein explores the mapping of the human
brain to create a “connectome” - the brain equivalent of our
cellular genome - and whether it will allow us to preserve our
brains and achieve immortality: Among some connectomics
scholars, there is a grand theory: We are our connectomes. Our
unique selves—the way we think, act, feel—is etched into the
wiring of our brains. Unlike genomes, which never change,
connectomes are forever being molded and remolded by life
experience. Sebastian Seung, a professor of computational
neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a
prominent proponent of the grand theory, describes the
connectome as the place where “nature meets nurture.” Hayworth
takes this theory a few steps further. He looks at the growth of
connectomics—especially advances in brain preservation, tissue
imaging, and computer simulations of neural networks—and sees
something else: a cure for death. J. Anthony Movshon, of