First Ever Human Head Transplant to be Attempted Next Month

[Marzipas]

This guys a complete snake oil salesman. His previous "successes" involved stitching a dead rats head onto the side of a living healthy rat, basically giving it a useless lump hanging off it, and then performing one on a monkey where it never regained consciousness, the spine was never connected and died less than a day later.

This recent one on a human was just him stitching a head onto a corpse.

This is a really good article on him.
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2017/nov/17/no-there-hasnt-been-a-human-head-transplant-and-may-never-be-sergio-canavero?CMP=fb_gu[/url]

[matt000024]

Yeah, anyone supportive of this guy clearly hasn't read even the article in the OP. The guy is a total fucking quack with zero regards for any sort of ethics.

[ForNoReason]

I just can't see the going any way but failing spectacularly, given how decapitation usually kills someone pretty effectively.

[Thelurker1234]

[QUOTE=matt000024;52903554]Yeah, anyone supportive of this guy clearly hasn't read even the article in the OP. The guy is a total fucking quack with zero regards for any sort of ethics.[/QUOTE]

Honestly I just applied a "I'll believe it when I see it" skepticism without really even looking into the guy. He gets posted every once in awhile.

[Portugalotaku]

Anyone else find it amusing that this happened just after Wolfenstein II came out?

[Nitronik]

[QUOTE=Portugalotaku;52904218]Anyone else find it amusing that this happened just after Wolfenstein II came out?[/QUOTE]

he has been going on about it way before wolf2

[Rolond]

jesus christ i'm reading that article and my stomach is turning, the whole ethics and procedure are way beyond my comment but it'd be a huge scientific achievement if it does actually happen and I'm still interested in hearing the end result

[editline].[/editline]

just warn me first so i can get a glass of water

[wsinw]

Here's a link to what I assume is his latest paper on his plans.

[url]https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xiaoping_Ren3/publication/302922503_Neurologic_foundations_of_spinal_cord_fusion_GEMINI/links/58f0acaf0f7e9b6f82dd031d/Neurologic-foundations-of-spinal-cord-fusion-GEMINI.pdf[/url]

He calls it GEMINI.

[Ona]

Somebody with more scientific know-how, feel free to correct me here, but can't stem cells be used to heal spinal cord injuries and reform nerve pathways?

I mean, I know stem cell usage has it's own controversies around it and all that, but iirc, they can essentially be used as a skeleton key for the body's cellular structure and form themselves into nerve pathways to heal otherwise "irreparably" damaged tissue.

Also, in terms of ethics, the way I see it is thus: If the patient is paralyzed from the neck down and is an emotional wreck as a result, a person perhaps who would willingly undergo euthanasia, then something like this - if it works - might actually be their one chance at getting a normal life back.

When you get right down to it, a head transplant isn't [I]as[/I] absurd as it seems. Yes, you're grafting some pretty major bodyparts together - spinal cord, arteries, blood vesseles, ect - and if the spine can't be properly fused/healed, then there's no way the new body would have any sort of proper function without the aid of machines...

But if you can solve the spine problem, well!

[DMGaina]

[QUOTE=Svinnik;52896124]Originally the patient was supposed to be some Russian developer and take place in Russia but plans changed and now the surgery is taking place in China on an anonymous Chinese guy. The big problem with this surgery as mentioned is the repairing of severed nerves but Canavero claims that he has a compound that helps repair nerves. He's also not a hack, he's cured a patient in a coma using the same technique.

also people thought he was an MGSV ad

[/QUOTE]

Remember when some Facepunchers thought last year that Konami will announce a DLC Pack for Phantom Pain on 9/11 because of a 9/11 mentioning in Rising and the Cut Content from MGSV showing the twin towers. :v:

[Darth-Veger]

Still strange how strong he resembles the doctor from MGS V, last time the news article came out it was exactly around the peak point of the MGSV hype.

[Nahash]

[QUOTE=Marzipas;52902740]This guys a complete snake oil salesman. His previous "successes" involved stitching a dead rats head onto the side of a living healthy rat, basically giving it a useless lump hanging off it, and then performing one on a monkey where it never regained consciousness, the spine was never connected and died less than a day later.

This recent one on a human was just him stitching a head onto a corpse.

This is a really good article on him.
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2017/nov/17/no-there-hasnt-been-a-human-head-transplant-and-may-never-be-sergio-canavero?CMP=fb_gu[/url][/QUOTE]

article raises questions that have already been answered by the doctor

[QUOTE]The human body is not modular. You can’t swap bits around like you would Lego blocks, take a brick from castle and put it onto a pirate ship and have it work fine. There are copious obstacles to contend with when linking a head to body, even when they’re the same person’s. Doctors have, in recent years, “reattached” a severely damaged spinal cord in a young child, but the key-word is “damaged”, not “completely severed”; there’s enough connection still to work with, to repair and reinforce. And this is with a young child, with a still-developing nervous system better able to compensate. Even taking all this into account, and the advanced state of modern medicine, the successful procedure was considered borderline miraculous.

So, to attach a completely severed spinal cord, a fully developed adult one, onto a different one, one that’s maybe been dead for days? That’s, what, at least four further miracles required? And that’s not to take into account immune rejection, the fact that we don’t really know how to “fix” damaged nerves yet (let alone connect two unfamiliar halves) and the issue that everyone’s brain develops in tune with their body.[/QUOTE]

Canavero has emphasized the need for a clean cut of the spine in order for the surgery to be a success. The dead for days point is just wrong, this is going to take place in China and probably some political prisoner will "volunteer" to be the donor. Canavero is also planning to use a compound called PEG to heal the severed spinal cord.

[URL="http://news.rice.edu/2016/09/19/graphene-nanoribbons-show-promise-for-healing-spinal-injuries/"]http://news.rice.edu/2016/09/19/graphene-nanoribbons-show-promise-for-healing-spinal-injuries/[/URL]

Canavero is also a neurologist that's published a lot of papers and Ren is a doctor who has had experience in pioneering transplants, he was on the team that figured out how to perform hand transplants.

I'm not sure if they will succeed or not but the journalists who are describing this operation as a procedure where they'll simply cut off both heads and switch them are misrepresenting the operation.

[Headhumpy]

[QUOTE=Svinnik;52908193]article raises questions that have already been answered by the doctor

Canavero has emphasized the need for a clean cut of the spine in order for the surgery to be a success. The dead for days point is just wrong, this is going to take place in China and probably some political prisoner will "volunteer" to be the donor. Canavero is also planning to use a compound called PEG to heal the severed spinal cord.

[URL]http://news.rice.edu/2016/09/19/graphene-nanoribbons-show-promise-for-healing-spinal-injuries/[/URL]

Canavero is also a neurologist that's published a lot of papers and Ren is a doctor who has had experience in pioneering transplants, he was on the team that figured out how to perform hand transplants.

I'm not sure if they will succeed or not but the journalists who are describing this operation as a procedure where they'll simply cut off both heads and switch them are misrepresenting the operation.[/QUOTE]

I was doubtful at first but a brief literature search shows that PEG [I]can[/I] fuse severed axons. The problem is the spinal cord is a lot more than just axons, and so far trials with rats involving full spinal cord severance have resulted in quadriplegia, albeit with improved nerve conduction compared to control groups. Furthermore, these trials were conducted by severing and treating the spinal cord of one rat, rather than severing and fusing the spinal cord from the head of one rat to the body of another, which would presumably introduce all kinds of other complications. Transplanting a single organ is messy enough as it is, let alone transplanting an entire body/head.

Another issue is a lot of the literature on this topic comes from research groups in China, and is published in lesser-known journals. I'm just not very confident of the quality of this research.

[Portugalotaku]

[QUOTE=NitronikALT;52904260]he has been going on about it way before wolf2[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I know, but the timing is really just too perfect.

[Sims_doc]

[QUOTE=AtomicSans;52895410]More like Metal Gear Rising 2 tbh[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't mind that, the first game wasn't half bad.

[Nebukadnezzer]

[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52895462]If he's successful in not only keeping him alive, but also allowing him to walk again, it's going to be fucking huge.

However, it's incredibly unlikely that this will be the case. There is some significant doubt in his approach and the spinal cord is an incredibly complex thing to mess with. We're not even talking about how the rest of the body would handle this.[/QUOTE]

if he's able to consciously control any of his muscles at all, it will be so astronomically groundbreaking as to revolutionize the field of medicine as regards the central nervous system

[editline]24th November 2017[/editline]

[QUOTE=Svinnik;52908193]article raises questions that have already been answered by the doctor

Canavero has emphasized the need for a clean cut of the spine in order for the surgery to be a success. The dead for days point is just wrong, this is going to take place in China and probably some political prisoner will "volunteer" to be the donor. Canavero is also planning to use a compound called PEG to heal the severed spinal cord.

[URL="http://news.rice.edu/2016/09/19/graphene-nanoribbons-show-promise-for-healing-spinal-injuries/"]http://news.rice.edu/2016/09/19/graphene-nanoribbons-show-promise-for-healing-spinal-injuries/[/URL]

Canavero is also a neurologist that's published a lot of papers and Ren is a doctor who has had experience in pioneering transplants, he was on the team that figured out how to perform hand transplants.

I'm not sure if they will succeed or not but the journalists who are describing this operation as a procedure where they'll simply cut off both heads and switch them are misrepresenting the operation.[/QUOTE]

I don't get why people think this is just some crack dentist or something

we never get anywhere without taking risks and I have a great amount of respect for the doctor for having the balls to be the first