It Is Possible To Transplant A Person's Head To A New Body If The Spinal Cord Is Transplanted With It

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Video: It Is Possible To Transplant A Person's Head To A New Body If The Spinal Cord Is Transplanted With It

Video: It Is Possible To Transplant A Person's Head To A New Body If The Spinal Cord Is Transplanted With It
Video: Scientists Want to Transplant a Human Head, Here's Why That's a Bad Idea 2024, March
It Is Possible To Transplant A Person's Head To A New Body If The Spinal Cord Is Transplanted With It
It Is Possible To Transplant A Person's Head To A New Body If The Spinal Cord Is Transplanted With It
Anonim

Several years ago, the news of the first human head transplant thundered all over the world. Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero announced that he was about to perform a similar operation

A person's head can be transplanted to a new body if the spinal cord is transplanted with it - head transplant, head transplant, spinal cord
A person's head can be transplanted to a new body if the spinal cord is transplanted with it - head transplant, head transplant, spinal cord

When Valery Spiridonov, a Russian disabled person with a crippled body, was named his patient, they began to talk a lot about such a procedure in our country.

True, later an unnamed Chinese man was chosen by the patient, and the timing of the operation itself was pushed further and further. Canavero transplanted heads to corpses and rats, but he still cannot get to an operation on a living person.

Technically, the matter does not seem particularly complicated, in the end, the heads of live dogs were transplanted by the Soviet doctor Demikhov. However, his dogs managed to live for the most part only a few days.

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The main problem with completely cutting off the head and transplanting it to another body is the lack of normal technology for connecting the spinal cord. Without this, the head transplant patient will have no control over the muscles in the body. Technically, it could be kept viable with the help of apparatus, but it would rather be like torture.

In 2002, Japanese scientists seemed to have found the right solution to such a problem, they transplanted the heads of rats and they could control the body. The Japanese achieved this through the use of low temperatures, that is, by greatly cooling the head before transplantation, as well as through the technique of connecting nerve cells using polyethylene glycol.

However, if this is applied to a person, then his brain would have to be cooled to such a temperature at which all neural activity ceases. And this is fraught with new dangers.

However, if doctors learn to use the latest advances in stem cells, robotics and neural surgery for such an operation, then they may succeed in the next decade. I am sure of this Bruce Matthews - Former Lead Clinic at Kingston University Hospital in Yorkshire, England.

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Matthews is also a writer and recently co-authored a science fiction novel "Chrysalis" with writer Michael J. Lee about the potential for human immortality. The idea that a human head transplant is not impossible, Matthews faced when he began to study this technology in detail as he wrote the novel.

"At first we just had a brainstorming session of various ideas, and at first it seemed pretty stupid, but then I realized that everything is really wrong and that if you separate the body from the head, and then attach the head to another body, then it is not impossible. This can be done in reality."

According to Matthews, for this, together with the head, the entire spinal nerve section can be transplanted into the new body, separating it from the spinal column.

"It is very difficult to extract the brain without drilling holes in the spine, but I am sure we will learn how to do this in the next 10 years."

Such an operation can help not only those wishing to become "immortal", but also people suffering from muscular dystrophy and other cripples.

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