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| Dr. Canavero |
A Neuroscientist has found a way to transplant a human head.
People who have been cryogenically freezing their heads, were not out of their minds after all.
Doctor Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group has developed a medical procedure that he said will successfully connect a brain to a spinal cord which is the biggest challenge for any operation of this kind.
"It is my contention that the technology only now exists for such linkage," he writes in the Surgical Neurology International journal.
The procedure will not be cheap. Dr. Canavero said he would estimate that the procedure would cost a whopping $15 million for the operation alone.
Dr. Canavero said his procedure is derived from the successful head transplants in animal experiments, which dates back to the 1970s.
The head of a rhesus monkey was transplanted into the body of another in 1970, in an experimental procedure. The head was rapidly cooled to about 12 degrees Celsius and quickly transferred to a new body.
Once the head was reconnected to the circulatory system, the heart was restarted and connected to the nerve system. Dr. Canavero argues that a "clean-cut" by an ultra-sharp cutting device was the key to success, as it would allow severed nerve cells to fuse together.
Last month, scientists at Case Western Reserve University were successful in their experiment with rats, and they can now restore some neural connectivity in the spinal cords of rats.