Head transplant: Russian man to become first to undergo pioneering and controversial surgery - Polidicks

You really gotta wonder what goes through your head as they put you to sleep for the operation. Like, either you're gonna wake up or you're about to close your eyes surrounded by extremely trained professionals and that's it. I can see why he decided to go for it. On one side it will work though to what exact degree we do not know yet but on the other he goes under and to him his suffering peacefully ends there.

[QUOTE=pentium;50832899]You really gotta wonder what goes through your head as they put you to sleep for the operation. Like, either you're gonna wake up or you're about to close your eyes surrounded by extremely trained professionals and that's it. I can see why he decided to go for it. On one side it will work though to what exact degree we do not know yet but on the other he goes under and to him his suffering peacefully ends there.[/QUOTE] Not sure if if it will be very peaceful. This all reminds me of the case with [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Macchiarini"]Paolo Macchiarini[/URL], who tried replacing unhealthy airways with synthetic/plastic ones. If I recall correctly most of them died, painfully. I think both are willing to risk the lives of their patients just because it might give them a breakthrough in their career.

This reminds me of a sci-fi/horror book I read once, only the difference was the surgeon protagonist was portrayed a bit unstable. iirc it never ended well for anyone.

[QUOTE=archangel125;50831968]I don't know why, but I'm not buying the story that the motion capture actor looked like him - if only because I can't find pictures of said actor anywhere. Anyway, more on topic, I'm not sure it's even possible to do this. Connecting the nerves in the neck seems like a pipe dream.[/QUOTE] The man you're looking for is Ian Moore, you need only look up the doc's mocap actor and then Google the name. Voila: [t]https://i.imgur.com/Q8e4tZU.png[/t] The resemblance is just a coincidence, it's a Portman/Knightley type of thing.

i still cant tell if this doctor is an elaborate fake or not. one of the biggest (if not the biggest) issue is he has not explained or ever demonstrated the ability to sever, reconnect and completely rewire the spinal cord, pretty much the entire crux of this surgery

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;50831988]Canavero is real-life Frankenstein. I'm more than happy to know that at least someone will give it a shot, along with a small army of 150 other doctors.[/QUOTE] If he can pull this off and succeed, he'll probably be a goddamn pioneer. Even if he does sound like the titular character of a 1920's silent horror film. Just picture it, "The Workshop of Doctor Canavero". You just KNOW that would be a DVD in James Rolfe's massive collection.

[QUOTE=Sableye;50833403]one of the biggest (if not the biggest) issue is he has not explained or ever demonstrated the ability to sever, reconnect and completely rewire the spinal cord, pretty much the entire crux of this surgery[/QUOTE] They're going to glue his spinal cord together with polyethylene glycol, that should fuse the severed nerves. Whether that's going to work or not, we shall see.

Can you imagine waking up to a world after this surgery? If this works in any capacity it'll be a whole new world.

[QUOTE=Popularvote;50833693]Can you imagine waking up to a world after this surgery? If this works in any capacity it'll be a whole new world.[/QUOTE] I'd expect his body to be spazz all over the place, until the brain learns how to control the new body. Then again, what do I know.

No way this will work out well. If he even manages to survive in some capacity, it'll probably be a living nightmare.

[QUOTE=EddieLTU;50831913]Imagine the body rejecting[/QUOTE] [video=youtube_share;sG1FEA7IH9w]http://youtu.be/sG1FEA7IH9w[/video]

[QUOTE=Bread_Baron;50833146]The man you're looking for is Ian Moore, you need only look up the doc's mocap actor and then Google the name. Voila: [t]https://i.imgur.com/Q8e4tZU.png[/t] The resemblance is just a coincidence, it's a Portman/Knightley type of thing.[/QUOTE] The resemblance is pretty uncanny. I guess you're right.

Oh, its this guy again. I remember reading into his claims and history a couple of years ago and in case you're thinking this is kinda plausible - It's not. Just to give you kind of an idea just how preposterous his claims are, the state of today's medicine is advanced enough to re-attach extremities of the same body (not a completely severed head, mind you) but TRANSPLANTATION is a WHOLE other issue. We can't permanently transplant full extremities, not even a hand. I mean, yes, its possible to perform the procedure itself but rejection is ALWAYS guaranteed in any major transplantation procedure. The only thing to combat this is immunosuppressive drugs. This kind of treatment is not a long-term solution as these kinds of drugs take an extreme toll on the patient's health and general well-being. As for the surgery itself, about 80% of transplantation procedures result in infection despite all modern precautions and about 40% of post surgery deaths are caused by this. Not to mention that a body receiving a organ transplant is permanently weakened and will develop any number of health issues as a direct result of the transplantation or the drug treatment, including increased risk of infection, increased risk of malignancy, nephrotoxicity, neurotoxicity, gastrointestinal toxicity and diabetes. Just to put this into context in very simple terms: the head, THE FUCKING HEAD contains A WHOLE LOT OF REALLY DELICATE, IMPORTANT STUFF that is far more vulnerable to these kinds of complications than any arm or leg. Not to mention that the entire Medulla would have to just re-adjust itself to an entire new set of foreign organs, a thing that as far as we can tell (from the point of never having successfully transplanted a human head before) just doesn't work. And just to put things into perspective with some numbers: The longest running patient has been going for 11 years now but only about 90 patients worldwide have so far received transplants for large extremities like Arms or Hands. Oh, and microsurgery of the cervical nerve? Not gonna happen. If you're interested in why, here's an article on [URL="http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v7/n8/full/nrn1964.html"]spinal cord repair[/URL]. (just repair, mind you, not transplantation microsurgery) And this guy is trying to tell you that he found a way around all that? Great, that means that even without a pharmaceutical company behind you, you can just conjure up miracle drugs far more advanced than anything we have for transplant recipients today, that not only solves the problems with current procedures but even more advanced ones that have never been pulled off before. And one man can just figure out new strategies in neural microsurgery with no century long history of research behind him like it is the case with other transplantation procedures. Chances are, he's full of shit. tl;dr His claims are insane and he's full of shit and if he's not he's literally the messiah of modern medicine

[video]https://youtu.be/GNtTlyWl_oI?t=123[/video] This is the first thing I thought of when I saw this title.

[QUOTE=archangel125;50832523]Have you bothered reading about it? There are major difficulties to overcome before people can be cloned or organs can be grown. Scientists can easily clone tissue cells and cause them to multiply in a controlled environment, but they can't yet grow a working organ from them - at least not any complex one. Just because they've been looking into it for years, don't expect major breakthroughs anytime soon. It's one thing to get cells to multiply and keep them alive, quite another to make them take the form of a functional, healthy organ and work together correctly.[/QUOTE] ...They cloned an entire fucking sheep that lived healthily for 6 years and was able to be bred and gave birth to 6 sheep/rams, and you're telling me they can't take a human liver cell and clone a damn liver? [editline]5th August 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=mochisushi;50833825]I'd expect his body to be spazz all over the place, until the brain learns how to control the new body. Then again, what do I know.[/QUOTE] No doubt he WILL need a shitload of physical therapy, but I doubt the body will "spaz out". More likely it'll act as if he's quadriplegic, as his brain struggles to understand and re-map the new pathways to control various limbs.

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;50834873]...They cloned an entire fucking sheep that lived healthily for 6 years and was able to be bred and gave birth to 6 sheep/rams, and you're telling me they can't take a human liver cell and clone a damn liver? [/QUOTE] [IMG]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Dolly_clone.svg/391px-Dolly_clone.svg.png[/IMG] it seems a little different than cloning an organ. I'm of course no expert and I haven't read too much about this sheep, but it seems a little easier to clone an entire being than individual organs (surprisingly). easier to get an instruction set for a clone by using two donors (male and female) as we're already made to produce babies that way?

So, where or whom are they sourcing this body from? They don't normally grow without heads.

[QUOTE=lilguy;50835443]So, where or whom are they sourcing this body from? They don't normally grow without heads.[/QUOTE] most likely someone who was unfortunate to end up brain dead.

[QUOTE=PredGD;50835487]most likely someone who was unfortunate to end up brain dead.[/QUOTE] Which raises the question, what do you do with the spare head? Keep it in a jar?

[QUOTE=RIPBILLYMAYS;50835546]Which raises the question, what do you do with the spare head? Keep it in a jar?[/QUOTE] Cremate/bury it/them.

[QUOTE=RIPBILLYMAYS;50835546]Which raises the question, what do you do with the spare head? Keep it in a jar?[/QUOTE] Sew it onto the original crippled body and revive it for hijinks

So if this fails, how badly will this set back chances for brain-computer interfaces, and other head/brain related surgeries?

[QUOTE=DJ999;50835598]So if this fails, how badly will this set back chances for brain-computer interfaces, and other head/brain related surgeries?[/QUOTE] Well, worst case scenario it makes governments try to place restrictions on this type of surgery/ban it/stop funding research of the brain to prevent a future incident. Best case scenario, we get more researchers on this to find out what went wrong and how to fix it.

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;50831919]Here's TEDx's talk with Dr. Canavero [hd]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV5pOO5Mt64[/hd] Very fascinating.[/QUOTE] Wow, I thought that guy was fake or part of some ARG for a game.

[QUOTE=Snoberry Tea;50834873]...They cloned an entire fucking sheep that lived healthily for 6 years and was able to be bred and gave birth to 6 sheep/rams, and you're telling me they can't take a human liver cell and clone a damn liver?[/QUOTE] It's not like dolly was grown in a vat of go or walked out of a machine like Hollywood/Cartoon cloning. The two are very different things.