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Human Head Transplants May Soon Be Possible

| February 27, 2015 Comment

Human Head Transplants May Soon Be Possible – According to Sergio Canavero, a surgeon in Turin, Italy, transplanting a living human head on a donor body might be only a couple of years away.

Canavero recently published an outline of how the surgery could be performed, and in an interview for New Scientist, he says he wants to do body transplants to prolong the lives of people with terminal diseases. He is planning to announce the project at a meeting of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopedic Surgeons in Maryland this June.

Canavero addressed the technical issues involved in Surgical Neurology International. He believes that cooling both body and head before surgery should prevent cell death during the time when one part would not be able to communicate with the other. The spinal cord would need to be severed cleanly in both bodies and glued together with a fusing chemical called polyethylene glycol. The patient would need to be kept in a coma to prevent movement, but it would be electrically stimulated to promote nerve activity. Canavero believes that the patient would be able to walk within a year after the procedure.

According to Canavero, science has evolved to the point when such a procedure could be successful. He hopes to put together a team to explore the head transplant surgery, and thinks it is time to start debating the ethical issues around such a radical idea.

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