A team in Germany reported a method using vitrification and optimized thawing that preserved neuronal firing, metabolism and some plasticity in whole mouse brains, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead sentence: researchers demonstrated recovery of multiple functional metrics in vitrified‑thawed mouse brains, advancing cryopreservation beyond cellular survival to partial circuit restoration. The study details cryoprotectant regimes, ice‑free vitrification, and electrophysiological and metabolic readouts; authors caution scaling to large mammalian organs remains a distant challenge but note implications for organ banking and injury protection.