Human Head Transplants? They Won't Work! [View all]

[LongTomH]

From LiveScience: Why Human Head Transplants Will Never Work:

An Italian neurosurgeon is claiming that his team has performed the world's first "successful" human head transplant, using two human cadavers in China, according to news reports. The procedure, which took 18 hours to complete, has led the controversial surgeon — Dr. Sergio Canavero, of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy — to say he expects to be able to carry out the operation on a living person "imminently," according to The Telegraph.

But experts have expressed skepticism about Canavero's claim that the procedure — which would involve severing the head of one person and keeping it alive long enough to re-attach it to a headless "donor" body — could be performed on a living person.

There are numerous reasons why this is virtually impossible in practice, including the need to connect numerous nerves and tiny blood vessels, and the probable biochemical incompatibility between the head and donor body.

"It's not like putting a light bulb into a new socket," Caplan said. "If you move the head and the brain, you are putting it into a new chemical environment with new neurological input. I think it would drive the person crazy before they died."

There was a post on this a few days ago, resulting in a lot of horror movie references and grim humor. The 'experts' referenced above, also see this as a horror show.

"It's almost Mengele-like talking about transplanting a head" of someone who is paralyzed due to a terrible disease onto a body of someone else, Caplan said, referring to an infamous Nazi physician who performed inhumane medical experiments on Auschwitz prisoners. "It's cruel, and it certainly is a recipe for a disaster."