A Chinese philosopher had his brain frozen to be used for future science.
Li Zehou's brain was frozen upon his death in 2021
Li Zehou requested in his will that his brain be cryopreserved for 500 years, before it is defrosted and put to use again.
Zehou died in exile in Colorado in November 2021, aged 91.
He was a modern scholar of Chinese history and culture whose work was central to the period known as the Chinese Enlightenment in the 1980s.
An alumnus of Peking University, he graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1954, and he worked at research institutes across the globe.
Ma Qunlin, a friend and editor of his books, revealed the philosopher's family got the cryonics non-profit Alcor Life Extension Foundation to freeze his brain on the day of his death.
The late scholar and aesthetics specialist hoped the experiment will prove his sedimentation theory.
According to the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, the theory "seeks to explain the uniqueness of the human species through its use of tools, both physical and cognitive, leading to cultures grounded in aesthetic taste and the prospect of suprabiological beings.”
Zehou had shared with the Chinese publication Southern People Weekly in 2010: "I won’t have an epitaph. But I will leave my brain frozen. Take it out after 300 or 500 years.
"I have told my wife and child. Some people want to resurrect in this way, but I don’t think resurrection is possible.
"I am trying to prove whether culture affects the brain, and whether it is possible to find remnants of Chinese culture in my brain after a few hundred years, to prove my ji dian (sedimentation) theory."
Zehou donated $80,000 (£63,000) to a foundation that specialises in cryonic preservation of human remains.