In December of this year, a transplant endeavor bordering on Frankenstein-like madness is set to take place. A head transplant would mean that a person could live in the body of another individual. In efforts to successfully transplant a head, several experiments have been conducted on monkeys, rats, and dogs. In all these experiments, the surgeries were successful, but the patients died, reports The Science Times.
However, Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero has been claiming for years that connecting a human head to a donor body is possible and that significant progress has been made in this regard through testing in China. Now, Canavero is once again announcing the first human head transplant, which is expected to occur this year in the United Kingdom.
The chances of a whole body transplant being successful are equivalent to winning the lottery, but Canavero assures that it is possible. The method, in simplified terms, involves Dr. Canavero cutting off the head of a living volunteer and then freezing it. The body of the deceased donor is also put on ice. The head and body are connected using polyethylene glycol, which is supposed to facilitate the joining of spinal nerves. This substance has been used in animal testing where spinal nerves have regenerated, but whether it will have the same effect on humans is unknown.
If that fails, Canavero claims that stem cells or olfactory bulb cells can be used to connect the spinal cord. If he succeeds in his endeavor, the patient should be able to communicate, move, speak in the same voice, and feel the skin of the body and face after the whole body transplant.
