Doctor Ready to Perform First Human Head Transplant (newsweek.com) 256
Ross Kenneth Urken, reporting for Newsweek (edited and condensed): Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero had his Dr. Strange moment when he announced he'd be able to do a human head transplant in a two-part procedure he dubs HEAVEN (paywalled, this alternate link could help) (head anastomosis venture) and Gemini (the subsequent spinal cord fusion). [...] Canavero has a plan: It's a 36-hour, $20 million procedure involving at least 150 people, including doctors, nurses, technicians, psychologists and virtual reality engineers. In a specially equipped hospital suite, two surgical teams will work simultaneously -- one focused on Valery Spiridonov (patient) and the other on the donor's body, selected from a brain-dead patient and matched with the Spiridonov for height, build and immunotype. Both patients -- anesthetized and outfitted with breathing tubes -- will have their heads locked using metal pins and clamps, and electrodes will be attached to their bodies to monitor brain and heart activity. Next, Spiridonov's head will be nearly frozen, ultimately reaching 12 to 15 degrees Celsius, which will make him temporarily brain-dead.Shouldn't it be called a body transplant? Since a person is often defined by the brain. You can read the complete procedure here.
Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Funny)
But at $20 million dollars, it's definitely something you don't want to lose your head over. Too damn expensive!
Re:Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Interesting)
I am more curious on the long term effects vs. the procedure.
Our health and state of being is beyond just our brain. How we feel and experience the world is based on what our body translates as well. If you are feeling nervous stomach medicine can help that. Because when we feel nervous we send signals to our body and the sensation feedbacks to itself.
So getting a new body how much would that change the man?
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I'll believe when I
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They've been able to sever and reconnect spinal cords for a while now. The reason it's not all that easy with accident victims is the damage caused by the initial trauma. Look at that guy with the penis transplant - worked just fine, bhis girlfriend is pregnant [cnn.com]
And then we have stupidity like this bogus story [now8news.com]
Re:Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Funny)
"And then we have stupidity like this bogus story [now8news.com]"
I hope that when this guy starts dating agin, he understands that neigh means neigh.
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There are different definitions of success - impregnation can be done with no penis at all, so that one data point doesn't really prove much.
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Re:Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. "you" are the head. It makes zero sense to talk about transplanting a head.
Unless you're talking about a penis transplant (an addadicktomy), in which case it makes perfect sense :-)
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Unless you're talking about a penis transplant (an addadicktomy), in which case it makes perfect sense :-)
Given that many (most?) men often think with their penises, I'm still voting for "body transplant." :)
BTW, kudos on having the most commented journal post I've ever seen.
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if you had a way to support the brain and eyes, you could separate the skull from the spine, then lift the skull off from the front, swap them, and then reattach the skull to the spine (and the throat and the arteries and so on). You'd have to split open the back of the skull and neck (and remove the back of the eye sockets) so it just slips off/on over the brain and brainstem and spinal column.
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If you upgrade the CPU is it still the same computer?
Re:Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Funny)
If you upgrade the CPU is it still the same computer?
Not according to Microsoft.
Re:Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Funny)
Why limit your choice of bodies (Score:2)
Perhaps it would be simpler to graft the head on some other mammal. You could genetically engineer a humanized immunosuppressed animal, say a horse or a sheep. Humanized mice have been created to grow human compatible tissue so this isnt far fetched. By using clones and carefully raising them under highly identical conditions in a artifiial womb you could create more reproducible neural patterns in the bodies making it easier to learn which neuron controls what activitiy. Perhaps you could even train t
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The martians are light years ahead of us. Transplanting a human head onto the body of a chihuahua is child's play for them.
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They are going to screw so much up in the spinal cord (and vagus nerve) fusions that we won't be answering the more subtle questions of whether or not the donor body "redefines" the brain's personality.
Simple body transformations (breast implants?) already transform personality and sense of self... of course a whole different body would have a bigger effect.
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Its not quite the same question though. Transforming your "sense of self" is a purely psychological effect.
The head (/body?) transplant on the other hand is actually replacing the entire signalling mechanism and there's huge open questions about whether two different people process signals from their nerves in exactly the same way and things like that. Same with differing body chemistries and so on.
It could work out fine (well "fine".. I suspect the patient won't live more than a few hours at best given h
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20M us price. Real price 200K
Exactly (Score:3)
How do you spend 20 million on this? I'm skeptical. For 20 million I'd expect to get a head upgrade to go with the body upgrade.
Why not go dual core? (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems like a better idea, that would have to work if the current plan will work, would be to graft the head onto a healthy fully functional human. That is you get a human with two heads. One head is already fully integrated to the body. That's important because your body depends on an autonomic nervous system to regulate it. Even if it is true that the new head could learn to control the body's mucles-- eventually-- its not going to work out of the gate. SO the body is going to die or be on life support while things rewire. And I would wonder how a body on life support even gets the feedback it needs to engage in some neural plasticity.
On the other hand if you just graft the head and don't bother with the whole spinal cord thing then you have a lot more possibilities. The new head gets fed by a healthy working body. You might need to step up glucose production to handle two heads but I think that's within our current dynamic range.
Thus you could carry your mom or dad's head around on your shoulder.
You could then try to connect their spine to some other neural interface, either indirectly through say some strips of chest muscle that then control some electrical interface or directly to an electrical interface. Either way, you have the means to control some mechanical arms so the head at least has something it can do besides go for a ride.
Things like speech might be a problem till you figure out how to get an airway, throat, and the anchor points for jaw and tongue working right, but in the mean time you could steven hawking it with some eyebrow muscles or eye twitches.
Sees a lot more plausible and they already have done this with dogs.
Re:Why not go dual core? (Score:5, Funny)
Zaphod Beeblebrox, is that you?
Re:Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says it requires 150 people for 36-hours. Suppose these highly-paid medical professionals cost $100/hr. So $100/hr x 150 people x 36 hours = $540,000 just in labor. Add the machinery, the cost of the hospital rooms, the months to years of recovery, the training, medications - $20M seems like a bargain.
Also: From the standpoint of the body, it is a head upgrade! :-)
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150 people? How do 150 people even work on one person. You can't even get them all in the same room. But if you are liberally counting then getting your appendix out probably involves 150 people when you count the pharmacy staff, the guy that keeps the computer network running, and the people who sterilize the operating room...
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150 people? How do 150 people even work on one person. You can't even get them all in the same room. But if you are liberally counting then getting your appendix out probably involves 150 people when you count the pharmacy staff, the guy that keeps the computer network running, and the people who sterilize the operating room...
This number is counting in the mob "no show" contracts.
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They call it drive by doctoring
Re:Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Interesting)
But at $20 million dollars, it's definitely something you don't want to lose your head over. Too damn expensive!
Ba-dum-BUMP!
However, since the brain is off-limits to the immune system (which would REALLY love to attack and kill brain cells!), wouldn't it be better to do a BRAIN transplant, rather than messing with all the fleshy/muscle-y parts that are NOT off-limits to "rejection"?
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And those important organs that are outside the blood-brain barrier, but are hugely important, like the eyeballs, the tongue, etc? And look at it this way - you get to see the same face after, rather than looking at a dead man walking.
Kind of like that horrible John Revolta movie, Face/Off?
Gotta admit, that WOULD be mondo-creepy to NOT see the same face in the mirror that your brain EXPECTED to see!!! I think that would foster a whole new section of the DSM-V, LOL!
Re:Yep, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Funny)
It costs an arm and a leg to get a head in this world.
Full prosthetic bodies (Score:2)
I am wondering how long before we have access to full prosthetic bodies ... anyone who has seen Ghost in the Shell will know about this :)
Paywall (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Paywall (Score:5, Informative)
Month granuarity is the problem (Score:3)
Say Newsweek and nine other sites all noticed a sharp drop in advertisement revenue due to tracking blockers and responded by putting up a paywall. How many visitors would actually be willing to buy a whole month's subscription to all these sites for $40* just to read one article on each site? Or if you operated such a site, which micropayment method would you use instead to sell access to individual articles?
* Assuming each site offers the same price as WIRED ($4/mo)
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Going to war with the consumers of your content is never the good plan. That path leads to people not seeking you out with news, it leads to people seeking alternat
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Going to war with the consumers of your content is never the good plan.
I don't have a dog in this hunt and this question isn't an indictment of your position but I am curious if you consider loss prevention sensors and personnel at a store, say Target or Barnes & Noble as warfare against their customers. I realize the analogy isn't perfect but I try to see both sides of the coin and I can certainly understand how content producers on the internet would have an interest in making a living. I read a lot of free stuff online and I don't think I've ever actually clicked on an
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That said, I think it would be fair to characterize some loss prevention efforts as anti-consumer and effectively going to war with customers. The reality of these efforts shows, as brick and mortar retailers introduce more and more of these things which interfere with the experience of legitimate consumers they become less and less convenient relati
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That attitude is the barrier for content producers. Those who drop it will have the potential to succeed going forward. Those who embrace it will die slow deaths.
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Lie to yourself all you want, but if you read this comment and didn't send me $20, you stole from me. Because anybody can use any word at any time, even if it makes no sense. When you're 3 you'll understand.
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*the ones with trojan droppers
FINALLY (Score:5, Funny)
...I'll be able to use the Head of Vecna!
It has been a long, oft-tragic story.
http://www.blindpanic.com/humo... [blindpanic.com]
Dammit Jim, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep body transplant.
But can someone point to where he has done successful animal trials? Or even sliced and diced the same animal in order to reattach the spinal cord? Or Froze and un-froze an animal head?
Until the parts are tested, colour me skeptical
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Details the rich will be paying to be sorted out later
Re:Dammit Jim, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Informative)
There are several examples that resulted in living animals that were paralyzed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... [telegraph.co.uk]
Re:Dammit Jim, it's a body transplant (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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It was 1970, he's lucky the damn thing didn't explode on the table during surgery.
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There are several examples that resulted in living animals that were paralyzed.
But there seems to be a dearth of animals happily frolicking in the fields after such experiments. Seeing that happen is what I'd call a success, an the very minimum I'd like to see before slapping down my cash and saying "I want to buy a new body"
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Immortal at last (Score:2)
Just pop your head on a braindead clone.
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Re:Immortal at last (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if this body transplant surgery works perfectly, you are not immune from disease like Alzheimers and Parkinsons.
Oh really? [nature.com]
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Just pop your head on a braindead clone.
Do I get to choose from who's body the clone is?
That's a subjective statement, (Score:2)
Since when is 12-15 degrees Celsius "Nearly Frozen"?
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This sounds like the beginning of the next Saw movie.
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The article's author lives in the Sahara, 30*C is already too cold!
(it should be a degree glyph instead of an asterisk, but /. thinks unicode is bad)
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Creeeeeeepy (Score:2)
So many things could go wrong. The spinal cord is the most complex bus in the body. Connecting the correct nerve on both ends seems almost impossible. Will his brain adapt to any incorrectly placed nerves?
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The optic nerve does a hell of a lot of pre-processing, with a LOT of data. Even with the pre-processing, the part of the brain that processes vision is huge.
And then there's the corpus callosum. While sthe spinal cord measures between 1 and 1.5 cm thick, it's readily apparent in brain cross-sections that the corpus callosum is much thicker.
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So many things could go wrong. The spinal cord is the most complex bus in the body. Connecting the correct nerve on both ends seems almost impossible. Will his brain adapt to any incorrectly placed nerves?
Supposedly they actually tried this surgery a few years ago but screwed up the nerve connections so that whenever the patient tried to have a bowel movement his mouth would open. Fortunately last I heard he went on to have a very successful career as a politician.
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Even with a non functioning spine it could increase the life span of an individual if they wish, by keeping the body going. Muscle degenerating diseases as far as I know(I'm not a doctor) typically kill you. This could extend peoples lives even without an intact spinal chord. It would be a huge breakthrough on a lot of levels even if not fully successful.
That is to say it works at all. I'm also skeptical of it working, at least in the first attempt. I'm just saying the spinal thing might not detract everyon
Wait for it...... (Score:2)
So a doctor is giving two people head at once!!!!
He should find another donor body (Score:2)
There should be a bain-dead Playboy playmate or swimsuit model somewhere?
Man's Head, Woman's Body (Score:2)
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That would've made the story far more interesting, if a guy's head was attached to a woman's body.
It's been done. Heinlein "I will fear no evil" .
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what? no Futurama Jokes yet? (Score:3)
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Brings a whole new meaning to the term "butterface". 20-something body, 100+ head.
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i am ashamed of you slashdotters for not taking advantage of the Head in a Jar thing on Futurama, to make wisecracks about the worlds first head transplant, i wonder who the lucky head is? and the unfortunate head is?
Wouldn't this be closer to the time Zoidberg had to sew Fry's head onto Amy's body? Or even better would be a joke about headless Spiro Agnew
We all knew this was coming, right? (Score:2)
Whose head? (Score:2)
Abby Normal?
Truncated English (Score:2)
Awesome! (Score:2)
Spinal cord fusion? (Score:2)
They can fuse a spinal cord? Color me confused, but then why are there still paraplegics?
Identity and law (Score:5, Interesting)
On the off chance this actually works, he will have the fingerprints and DNA of the donor. Will he be responsible for children fathered by the body donor prior to the surgery? What about afterwards? Just a few thoughts off the top of my head. But it would be interesting to see how it would play out.
Aging on a younger body (Score:5, Interesting)
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Body donor is brain-dead.
Cells in the body begin to decay as soon as blood flow ceases, so that's a problem.
Re:Body Transplant! (Score:4, Funny)
Nobody wants a head transplant.
What a brain-dead idea to agree to a head transplant.
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If I was offered a head transplant I'd immediately perform a doctor transplant.
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If I was offered a head transplant I'd immediately perform a doctor transplant.
What if your body is just dying for one? Someone else's body might then look better than being dead.
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If I was offered a head transplant I'd immediately perform a doctor transplant.
What if your body is just dying for one? Someone else's body might then look better than being dead.
I'd want to see being dead first. Probably go to a being dead showroom, browse a being dead catalog.
There are benefits. I've heard there are things to do in Denver when you're dead.
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If it's anything like in that Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode, or Donald Trump, it's only the hair transplant that's evil.
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I'd hate to be walking around with someone else's ugly head on my body.
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Could you at least say this with a German accident? It's not creepy enough the way you put it.
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Well being the first Heart Transplant was 50 years ago. A hundred years ago such a procedure would be considered extremely unethical, treatments would be finding ways to keep the bad heart working.
Re: Expensive way to kill a man. (Score:2)
Jus remember to aim for ze head, not ze heart
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And then a body transplant?
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In many ways, not just this one.
Re: Presidential candidate (Score:2)
Poor Bill! He aint gonne like that!
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What doesn't make sense is that they're transplanting the head, while severing the spinal cord. It would make a lot more sense to open up a path through the spine and move the head and the spinal cord together. That way, they can reattach a bunch of peripheral nerves independently, which means if things aren't perfect, they'll eventually grow together on their own and start functioning. That procedure would have a much better chance of success.