forum.oregoncryo.com

For those of you who don't know, Ötzi was a Bronze Age traveler whose mostly intact body was discovered frozen in the Alps bordering Austria and Italy in 1991. His brain was reasonably well preserved , enough to be scannable - obviously damaged (and there is some suspicion that he may have been bludgeoned before his death, accounting for some damage), but recognizably a brain. He is currently in cold storage in Austria.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Imi-p5T2PWk

Do even the most speculative immortalists ever perceive a day in which Ötzi might be restored to life? Obviously he wasn't the beneficiary of anything remotely like cryonics, but he was more or less straight frozen, albeit at far higher temperatures.

Damage occurs first at the very smallest scales. Molecules break, membranes tear, proteins denature, etc. At this point, the tissue still looks great under light microscopy. Then, some cells start to completely fragment, with the little fragments getting stirred. I really don't see how you could ever infer original structure from stirred fragments. At first, this would be noticeable under light microscopy, but the brain would still look fine to the naked eye or to a CT scan. It's not until this damage is widespread that the brain begins to look damaged. So if the brain looks damaged, then it's probably hopeless because the ultrastructure and histology are both already lost.