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Medicine

Surgeon: First Human Head Transplant May Be Just Two Years Away 210

HughPickens.com (3830033) writes "Michelle Star writes at C/net that Surgeon Sergio Canavero, director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy, believes he has developed a technique to remove the head from a non-functioning body and transplant it onto the healthy body. According to Canavero's paper published in Surgical Neurology International, first, both the transplant head and the donor body need to be cooled in order to slow cell death. Then, the neck of both would be cut and the major blood vessels linked with tubes. Finally, the spinal cords would be severed, with as clean a cut as possible. Joining the spinal cords, with the tightly packed nerves inside, is key. The plan involves flushing the area with polyethylene glycol, followed by several hours of injections of the same, a chemical that encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh. The blood vessels, muscles and skin would then be sutured and the patient would be induced into a coma for several weeks to keep them from moving around; meanwhile, electrodes would stimulate the spine with electricity in an attempt to strengthen the new nerve connections.

Head transplants has been tried before. In 1970, Robert White led a team at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, US, that tried to transplant the head of one monkey on to the body of another. The surgeons stopped short of a full spinal cord transfer, so the monkey could not move its body. Despite Canavero's enthusiasm, many surgeons and neuroscientists believe massive technical hurdles push full body transplants into the distant future. The starkest problem is that no one knows how to reconnect spinal nerves and make them work again. "This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely," says Harry Goldsmith."
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Surgeon: First Human Head Transplant May Be Just Two Years Away

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  • by popo ( 107611 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:11AM (#49145997) Homepage

    Just reconnect the spinal nerves? This is like saying interstellar spaceships are just two years away. Just connect the warp drive to the antimatter, and there you go.

    Perhaps we should start by inventing a warp drive first? Or in this case, connecting severed spinal columns?

    • by gbjbaanb ( 229885 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:16AM (#49146025)

      I do think they could practice on paralysed people first - after all, if they can't reconnect severed spinal cord nerves in someone whose spinal cord is roughly still in place, what hope do they have for merging 2 different spinal cords?

      • I do think they could practice on paralysed people first - after all, if they can't reconnect severed spinal cord nerves in someone whose spinal cord is roughly still in place, what hope do they have for merging 2 different spinal cords?

        And that would be because paralyzed people are less human or less valuable? How about practicing and perfecting it on rats first, then higher animals?

        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by gstoddart ( 321705 )

          Oh, I don't know ... how about we spare the rats, and test on lawyers, MBAs, politicians, lobbyists, and CEOs?

          Make the world a better place in more than one way.

          • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

            Morally speaking, testing on lawyers and politicians would be preferable to using rats. However, scientific consensus is that the lack of a high-functioning nervous system in most politicians and lobbyists, et al, means that any results would not likely work on real humans.
          • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

            Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • It's based on the concept that a doctor should first 'Do no harm.' Let's say there are two people experiencing organ failure, one paralyzed, one not. In such a case, the probable outcome for the able-bodied person is worse than the paralyzed person. It would even be a net benefit for the paralyzed person if some limb function is restored, whereas for the able-bodied person it would inevitably result in decreased motor function at best.

          If the surgery on a paralyzed person is successful, with respect to li

          • I don't disagree, but human testing usually only follows after successful animal testing. So, even a paralytic, isn't do "no harm" if we don't know whether we can actually do this or not. Once we know it can be done, well then, a paralytic would seem to be the one to benefit most. But, until then, we would just be experimenting on handicapped human beings for the sake of gaining research knowledge. Most medical ethicists would say that is unethical.

      • But that goes without saying! Who would be fool enough to opt for a transplant if the part that's going to be swapped out is perfectly healthy. I mean heart transplants are for people with unhealthy hearts. Ditto for kidneys, livers, etc. So a potential body transplant would be for people with unhealthy bodies. Note that I used the word body tranplant, since our heads or at least the gray matter inside it, is what defines us as a person.

        I think by the time they figure out how to successfully transplant whol

      • yea, great idea, it's not like they can run! bwahahaa..

    • Agreed, the spinal nerves get where they are during fetal development, and slicing through them pretty thoroughly kills off the distal parts of the axons (Wallerian degeneration). If this could be done now, then there wouldn't be any paraplegic or quadriplegic people. And then what are they going to do about tissue rejection, when the tissue being rejected is the entire head?

      • Agreed, the spinal nerves get where they are during fetal development, and slicing through them pretty thoroughly kills off the distal parts of the axons (Wallerian degeneration). If this could be done now, then there wouldn't be any paraplegic or quadriplegic people. And then what are they going to do about tissue rejection, when the tissue being rejected is the entire head?

        Pretty much this, although I suspect cloning a body made from your own cell(s) will be plausible at or before spinal nerves are fused successfully.

        I'd be more pleased if they'd move forward on this body part cloning research before I need a heart, lung, or liver.

        • Seconded. We've already made huge leaps in using adult derived stem cells to regrow tissues and entire organs that don't have rejection issues and function properly, actual transplants will probably be obsolete by the time this procedure is possible.

    • We are able to at least partially repair severed spinal cords now. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284152.php [medicalnewstoday.com]. That's a lot further along than a couple of years ago.

      It may not be perfection, and connecting one spinal cord to another might not even match up the nerves, but there is progress being made. And we might get a complete repair treatment out of this.

    • If I remember correctly, the guy has a technique that has been shown effective in mice. Still hardly a guarantee it'll work in humans, but it's a start. Part of it has to do with a clean cut, rather than trauma, severing the code.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        " with a clean cut, rather than trauma, severing the code."

        That's going to be an interesting SVN commit.

    • You must be a project manager or stakeholder in on an AGILE project team. LOL

  • the neck of both would be cut and the major blood vessels linked with tubes. Finally, the spinal cords would be severed, with as clean a cut as possible. Joining the spinal cords, with the tightly packed nerves inside, is key. The plan involves flushing the area with polyethylene glycol, followed by several hours of injections of the same, a chemical that encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh

    That's Frankenstein. Any one really believed TFA was a true story??

  • by Ihlosi ( 895663 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:25AM (#49146071)
    Right now, we can't even repair spinal cord injuries where head and body belong to the same person. Once that becomes a routine medical procedure, we might think about head transplants and how to solve the problems associated with them.

    Seriously, are the people who cleam this serious? I don't think so.

    • We are able to at least partially repair them now. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284152.php [medicalnewstoday.com]. That's a lot further along than a couple of years ago.

    • "Right now, we can't even repair spinal cord injuries where head and body belong to the same person. Once that becomes a routine medical procedure, we might think about head transplants and how to solve the problems associated with them."

      That may very well be, but there are no people with spine injuries on the boards that decide about the grants to scientists, but many old people with a need for a young body.

    • Right now, we can't even repair spinal cord injuries where head and body belong to the same person. Once that becomes a routine medical procedure, we might think about head transplants and how to solve the problems associated with them.

      /quote>

      However, there are way less people with spinal cord injuries and a lot of money than people with a working head, a failing body and a lot of money.

      Unlimited money does wonders on time compression.

    • Actually, this might be a first step. The fact that the wound is perfectly fresh, and extremely cleanly severed (maybe they even sever it in such a way as to get a little extra nerves to work with). It could be a far easier fix than an actual injury.
    • To be fair, the guy outlines a process to cleanly sever and then prepare the nerves for reattachment under a very controlled environment, which is an entirely different thing from a spinal cord being damaged in an accident out in the world.

      That said, the whole idea is terrifying and if his end goal is literally making head swaps a somewhat common procedure nothing good will come of this. In order to make this possible you need bodies after all, and if this can extend the life of the transplant-ee by a sign

  • Time to start raising my clone body for the head transplant when I'm old.
  • Mark my words (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NotInHere ( 3654617 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:43AM (#49146199)

    One day there will be trillions of humans on this planet, brains only, connected to a huge computer, and all dreaming of a body of their own.

  • by Alrescha ( 50745 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @08:54AM (#49146319)

    Please read "I Will Fear No Evil" to see how all this turns out.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    A.

  • by patniemeyer ( 444913 ) <pat@pat.net> on Friday February 27, 2015 @09:01AM (#49146361) Homepage

    The first thing they need to do is start calling it a body transplant, not a head transplant. The living person got a new body, the dead person did not get a new head.

    Pat

  • if I add a second head as a new dependent?

    offtopic: I do like the menu moving to the top of the page but think you still need to provide a little more border on the LHS.

  • by jeffb (2.718) ( 1189693 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @09:17AM (#49146457)

    Well, heck. Now that we've mastered that pesky matter of grafting severed spinal cords, surely the optic nerve and other lesser bundles should be a piece of cake. So why not just do a brain transplant?

    Anubis? Is that you?

    • Uh, if you're transplanting the entire head, the optic nerves should already be intact. Just sayin'...

      • by Theovon ( 109752 )

        What if you don't like your head? Ugly people could have their brains transplanted into pretty people. Think of the potential for sex changes too! Then just as there's a market for stealing kidneys, there will arise a market for stealing whole bodies. You don't have to steal a rich person's digital identity. You can steal their WHOLE LIFE. Mind you, you'd have to study up really hard on every detail of their life and even learn to imitate their accent and speach patterns exactly, so their friends don'

  • Sounds like a pretty foolproof way of extending life. Many many people start degrading in their mind well before actually body failure, but there are 100 yos with decent faculties. And a better working body would help with many brain problems.
  • by wisnoskij ( 1206448 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @09:35AM (#49146613) Homepage
    What I don't understand is why do people without legs and arms get leg/arm transplants (how about bone transplants)? It seems that we would need to master that before we start attaching heads.
  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @09:41AM (#49146661) Homepage

    TLDR: Skip to the last paragraph for the best part. I didn't find it until I wrote all this up.

    Since this is the 2nd Slashdot summary talking about this seemingly wacky procedure, I I decided to look into him a bit. Unfortunately the hard transplant stuff is 99.99% of what the search results return. He even gave a TED talk [tedxlimassol.com] on the topic of human consciousness. It is possible this guy is just trolling to sell his recent philosophy book since he left his job as a neurosurgeon.

    Dr Canavero believes that the brain does not generate consciousness, but only filters it. His goal is to open the filter and see what lies beyond.

    Perhaps the fields of neurosurgery and chiropractic draw people who have a fascination with human consciousness, like how some chiropractors think that they can cure any disease by cracking your back?

    He claims to be part of the "Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group" which is "a Think Tank for the advancement of neuromodulation." It looks like that group is just him, and perhaps one colleage named "Vincenzo Bonicalzi MD" who co-authored a book with him in 2007. Together they wrote "Central Pain Syndrome: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Management" [amazon.com] But in 2014 Dr Canavero self published "Immortal: Why CONSCIOUSNESS is NOT in the BRAIN [amazon.com]". If you read the summary, it looks like your metaphysical philosophy.

    The best part: Doctor Canavero and his "group" believe that through a combination of electrical stimulation and head transplants that he can create a society of perfect immortal beings [openscience.com].

  • If you think about it, if we can eventually place the brain in a container that can withstand the vacuum of space and harsh climates on other planets, we could solve some of the logistics of traveling to Mars and beyond.

    So as crazy as this sounds, it could be a first step toward practical space travel.

  • Hey, this is great, for multiple reasons:

    Trouble losing weight? Nooooo problem anymore!

    Trying to sell black market organs? Forget all that nasty slicing and dicing; just grab the entire bag instead.

    Lawsuit deniability: *I* didn't hold that gun on the bank teller. The hand in that body did. (probably only works for the first few lawsuits though.)

    I guess they use Futurarama's Head-in-a-Jar while they're swapping heads?

    Gives a whole new worry in the bar scene, though: "Hey girl, you've got a
  • by Translation Error ( 1176675 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @09:53AM (#49146769)
    Well, I can't think of a better opportunity to revisit the classic roleplaying tale of The Head of Vecna [blindpanic.com].
  • by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Friday February 27, 2015 @09:59AM (#49146821) Journal

    I know brain injuries for events like near downing occasional leave bodies that can recover to health but the brain so damaged they will never escape a vegetative state. Certainly other brain injuries due to head knocks etc can have similar results.

    How many of these bodies are really available? Hollywood would have us believe quite a lot but I am not sure that is the case.

    That said how many of these potential donators are really out there ethically speaking? The body deteriorates when we are talking about a persistent vegetative state requiring feeding tubes and ventilators and such. Can we, will we in the foreseeable future be able to better identify when the patients brain won't recover. Right now there is already a financial incentive to pull the plug. What will happen to these patients who can't speak for themselves when those making decisions for them are under pressure to give their body to someone else? Will these lead to prematurely giving up on some folks?

    Seems like there should be some lower hanging fruit to go after in terms of modern medicine than head swaps. In fact just focusing reconnecting the sever spinal cord in the same monkey without adding the additional trauma and unknowns associated with the rest of the head swap would probably do more to help the disabled, which I am sure far out number the persistently comatose.

  • I think I've seen this movie before [imdb.com]. It doesn't end well.

  • I could use a new head.
  • Steel the entire body. Instead of waking up in a bathtub full of ice with your kidney gone, wake up (or not) with you body gone! Maybe that is what ISIS is actually doing, hmmm...
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Does this mean ISIS is doing science after all? Have we misjudged them? They can do half of this procedure, we just have to wait until they can do the other half.

  • Too many movie references pop into my head, from Young Frankenstein ("it's pronounced, "FRAW-ken-shteen") to Futurama. Do we really want ot give Richard Nixon's head a new body?
  • I see companies in the future that offer new bodies to old people. I would love to have a 20 year old body with my 60 year old head. I would dump my hubbie and find a younger one.

The more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drain.

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