Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero madeheadlines around the worldtwo years ago with the bold claim that he would shortly be stitching one person ’s head onto another ’s body .
Despite the legion obstacles Canavero face up from ethical and scientific standpoints , he looks like moving full - steam ahead . Last twelvemonth , he do what he called a " proof - of - conception " subprogram in which he severed a dog ’s spinal electric cord then reconnected it — one of the major obstacles to completing the process in people .
And now Canavero has print anotherequally repellant studythat details how he and another surgeon , Xiaoping Ren , attached the head of a mouse to the body of a rat . The team then repeated the procedure in several other animals , effectively create a serial of two - head rats .
Most of the beast in Canavero ’s studies lived for only several Clarence Day — the two - headed rats carried on for an average of 36 hour , and Canavero has n’t released details on the frank . But keeping them animated was n’t Canavero ’s goal ; instead , he say each experimentation is intend to resist as evidence that a concluded procedure in people is on the apparent horizon .
That far - fetched thought that has been explored by several scientists with mostly noble aims , such as saving the sprightliness of people with deadly disease like spinal mesomorphic wasting . But expert say there are many reasons to be doubtful . " These papers do not support impress forward in mankind , " Case Western Reserve University neuroscientist Jerry Silver , told New Scientist last yearabout Canavero ’s wiener paper .
Here are the five major obstacle a successful head transplant would face up .
1 . head teacher ca n’t stay alive on their own . In any transplant , the bestower Hammond organ ( the one that has been taken from a giver ’s organic structure ) has to be kept alive until it can be placed into the receiver ’s dead body .
As shortly as an organ is remove from a body , it begins to die . So doctors chill down the electronic organ to help oneself reduce the amount of energy its cells involve to stay alive . Using a solution of cold brine ( saline solution ) , theycan preservekidneys for 48 hours , livers for 24 hours , and hearts for about five to 10 hour .
But a forefront is n’t an isolated harmonium — it ’s one of the most complex office of the physical structure . In addition to house your brain , middle , auricle , nose , mouth , and skin , it go for two gland system : the pituitary , which controls the internal secretion that pass around throughout the body , and the salivary , which produces saliva .
More than a century ofdisturbing animal researchhas shown that at the moment of beheading , stemma pressure level in the head drop down dramatically . The resulting loss of fresh blood and oxygen pushes the Einstein into a coma , before long followed by demise .
In the most late computer mouse procedure , Canavero and his team arrogate they addressed this problem by keep a firm profligate supply flowing between the rodent who receive the head teacher , the gnawer who donate it , and a third gnawer .
CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics
2 . The immune system has to be cajole into consent a foreign head . In any organ transplant , one of the master outcome is the reaction of a patient role ’s own body . The resistant system of the soul receiving the organ detects immune - trigger substances , called antigens , on the cells of the new pipe organ . These antigens do n’t twin those found in their own trunk , which can lead the immune system to unleasha full - scale fire . That ’s why almost all transplant patients take immune - suppress drugs after their procedures .
Because the head is so complex and let in so many electric organ , the jeopardy of rejection is much higher .
3 . The OR has to happen in under an time of day . In a 1970s experiment that would never be set aside today , neurosurgeon Robert Whitetransplanted the top dog of a monkeyonto the body of a conferrer monkey . He maintained the monkey bodies by cooling them to about 59 degrees Fahrenheit for the duration of the subprogram . The monkey with the transplanted capitulum survived for eight twenty-four hour period after the operating theater , until the immune system rejected the mind .
harmonize to White ’s experiments and Canavero ’s paper , the entire transplant surgery has to be done in under an 60 minutes . Canaveronotesthat both of straits would have to be removed from their bodies at the same meter . work swiftly , the sawbones would have to reattach the head of the soul they want to keep alive to the circulatory arrangement of the conferrer ’s consistency while both trunk are under total cardiac arrest .
4 . Spinal cords are incredibly crafty to fuse . For a drumhead to be able-bodied to communicate with and control a new body , the spinal electric cord and the genius must be seamlessly connected .
This did n’t happen in the imp transplant — the scamp head that was transplant onto the donor was capable to see , move its middle , and eat , but the body was paralyzed from the neck opening down . It did seem to go on in the cad routine , but experts have sound out they need more concrete cogent evidence of Canavero ’s claim .
consort to Jerry Silver , Canavero ’s squad claims " they cut the cervical electric cord 90 % but there ’s no evidence of that in the newspaper publisher , just some crude picture . "
Canavero disagrees , of course . In aTED Talk , he described " a special biologic mucilage " call polythene glycol that he says could be the paint to successfully completing the procedure . Some observational surgeons in the 1930s and 1940sused this material , which is a case of credit card , to fuse the spinal electric cord of dog . But those experiments typically necessitate attaching a strange head to the unadulterated body of a dog ( give it two read/write head ) , rather than replacing one nous with another .
Canavero ’s design would also involve put the patient in a coma for up to a calendar month to permit the spinal cords to blend . Otherwise , the " spaghetti " ( as he calls it ) that makes up the spinal electric cord could become gnarled or twisted .
But such a farseeing comatoseness is a possible trouble as well , Harry Goldsmith , professor of neurosurgery at the University of California at Davis , told Popular Science — medically - induce comatoseness often result in contagion , blood coagulum , and reduced encephalon activity .
5 . The procedure has to work in creature tryout before being consider for man . Before headspring transplantation is ever debate for trials in people , all of these problems have to be addressed in animal test . And such experiments would front many hurdles in getting okay ( in the US , at least ) because they involve so much cruelty .
Nevertheless , Canavero and his team appear to be strike ahead in other country where the procedures are sound .
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