The Story of the First Human Head Transplant Won't Die (theoutline.com) 66
Stories about the first human head transplant operation, supposedly coming in December 2017, are circulating again. From a report on the Outline: But despite what you might have read or seen, humanity is not much closer to transplanting a human head to a new body than we were last year. Sorry to disappoint anyone looking to get their head transplanted. The story is based on the work of one man: Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero. Canavero started making headlines in 2013 with ambitious claims about the process he designed for a transplant of a human head -- as in, moving a healthy human head from a subject with an unhealthy body to an otherwise-healthy, brain-dead donor body. Canavero's claims have been alternately regarded as sensationalist, spurious, and ethically murky. Since then, the doctor has periodically resurfaced in the news. Once, when he found a willing patient in Valery Spiridonov, a Russian man with spinal muscular atrophy in the form of Werdnig-Hoffmann disease; other times when he published papers, including two proof-of-principle studies last year as well as articles reviewing preliminary work on animals relating to his proposed procedure. Though published in the internet-only journal Surgical Neurology International, an important distinction here is that none of these actually involve a successful full transplant of any kind despite his claim to have successfully transplanted a monkey's head. The papers addressing work with animals are, broadly speaking, about treating spinal cord injuries and issues.
"Simple" proof (Score:2, Redundant)
All the good doctor needs to do to prove his story is hold a joint press-conference with Mr. Spiridonov after the successful operation.
Re:"Simple" proof (Score:4, Interesting)
Even showing the results of the procedure on an animal would be helpful, assuming that the subject lived long enough to justifiably call it successful.
I'm no medical man, but aren't there rather severe problems with tissue rejection even when transplanting things as simple as kidneys and other organs? Aren't there also some severe complications rising from the autonomic functions that the brain stem controls in the body? How would the body handle losing that stimulus and regulation?
Can't remember if it was this good doctor or someone else that had showed a "iiving" head of one animal attached to the body of another animal, but while blood vessels were connected and blood flow to the head was sustained by the beating heart of the body, there was no control of that body by that head and the body instead had to be controlled artificially. The result didn't live long anyway.
If the good doctor's intentions are indeed above-board then it's noble to want to help people, but what he researches is so niche that it's difficult to see how much benefit would be brought even if the subject survived the procedure and with nerve damage problems we already can't treat, how that patient would be anything more than a head attached to an entirely paralyzed body. Given the number of conditions that could benefit from research, where significant numbers of patients could really see improvements in quality of life in addition to mere survival it seems like his pursuits are at-best misguided. What he proposes reminds me of the discussion in Mel Brooks' film Young Frankenstein when the medical student is arguing with Gene Wilder's character about the reanimation of tissue and Wilder's character responds how the work with kidneys etc are tinker-toys compared to the central nervous system.
To be fair (Score:1)
To be fair, a head transplant involves about the most severe spinal injury possible...
Don't bother transplanting it (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Don't bother transplanting it (Score:4, Insightful)
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I was rather fond of Lalla Ward (Romana 2).
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William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and Jon Pertwee all wish to have a word. Or, at least they would, if they weren't all dead.
Although given time travel, I suppose it's possible they were imitating Tom Baker before he was available to be imitated...
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Austin (Score:2)
He'll never be the head of a major corporation. Nothing to lose one's head over...
I Will Fear No Evil (Score:2)
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Well.. he started out with this story as a premise and it had lots of real hard SF promise about the implications ethical, practical, psychological, both for the transplantee and the people around them... , but then the book mostly ended up just being about fucking everything that moved. Not his best work, and its not the only Heinlein book that fell off the rails like that either.
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What's with people using "literally" all the time? Is it the '90s again?
Like, totally!
Oh wait, that was the 80s.
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I don't mind people using it more frequently. I do mind that people are using it to mean figuratively.
Head transplant won't die? Just chop off its... (Score:3)
in order to "count", does the head and the body (Score:2)
Head of Vecna (Score:5, Funny)
Where are the Mi-go when you need them (Score:2)
The Mi-go go one step further - they remove the brain from the body.
Body Fine; Head No Good (Score:2)
Can he do something for me?
Lacking technology for integrating nerves. (Score:4, Insightful)
This procedure could be made a reality if we had the technology to properly integrate nerves quickly on a "large" scale, meaning at least partial spinal column. Without this, the transplanted head would be unable to command even the most basic function needed: breathing. Sure, you could have a machine breath for you but your odds of survival and quality of life go waaay down... unless you have money to afford all the assistive care you would need. I appreciate medical advancements as much as the next guy but even if this procedure worked, it wouldn't be advancing anything except for a doctor's ego.
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Exactly. Long before a body transplant, we'll see spinal repair.
You walk before you run, you crawl before you walk. Right now, we're barely crawling and anyone who says we can go run a marathon is a liar.
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Already Successfully Demonstrated and Documented (Score:2)
Just wanted to point out that a successful head transplant does not necessarily result in a body with only one head. Just ask Roosevelt Grier and Ray Milland. [youtube.com]
Why not a body transplant? (Score:1)
Isn't this just a body transplant as viewed by the head?
Body transplant (Score:5, Informative)
It's obviously a body transplant, not a head transplant. The donor donates the body, not the head.
Cannot Connect the Nerves (Score:5, Informative)
I think the main problem with a head transplant is how do you reconnect all the nerves you've broken. They've found that broken nerves don't tend to reconnect. Nerves aren't exactly like wires, they're more like a living tree. If you chop down a tree but change your mind, you'll need to glue the tree together and hope that it grows back together. If it doesn't want to do that like as in nerves, that is not going to work.
Having your head disconnected from the body (even if you have all the blood vessels in place) is a problem. A lot of functions like breathing, heatbeat, and processing food is controlled by your brain and the lack of one isn't going to be great for the body.
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Is it a head transplant? (Score:1)
I would call it a body transplant.
here goes my dream ... (Score:2)
of transplanting my head to Oprah's body :-(
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how about two heads for twice the brain power? (Score:2)
Reminds me of "The Brain that wouldn't die". (Score:2)
I think I only saw it on MST3K. I still remember the wise cracks about "neck juice".
Cut off head of snake... (Score:2)
and the body will die.
Visionaries are never taken seriously the first time.