Link: This researcher wants to replace your brain, little by little

A US agency has hired a researcher with a radical plan to defeat death. His idea? Replace all body parts, including the brain.

Jean Hébert, now with the US Advanced Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), is expected to lead a project on “functional brain tissue replacement.” This could revolutionize treatments for conditions like stroke but also aims for total brain replacement to prevent death from aging.

Hébert believes living indefinitely requires replacing every part of our bodies with youthful equivalents. He’s already experimenting with injecting embryonic cells into mouse brains to test this idea.

While the concept faces skepticism, Hébert’s ideas have gained significant attention, including a $110 million project proposal to ARPA-H to test his theories in animals. The agency is known for its flexibility in funding transformative technologies.

The focus is on replacing the neocortex, the brain's center of memory and self-identity, which Hébert believes can be gradually swapped out without losing personal identity. His new role at ARPA-H gives him the resources to pursue this controversial goal.

Despite the challenges, Hébert is determined to push the boundaries of science in the fight against aging. “I prefer life over this slow degradation into nonexistence,” he says. #

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