Head implant - Ambition to overcome human limits

The world's first head transplant surgery is scheduled to take place in 2017, and controversy surrounding it is increasing day by day.

According to Newsweek, while some people consider Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero a pioneering genius, others see him as Dr. Frankeinstein in the horror novel of the same name.

The 51-year-old doctor has planned this for many years and by 2013, he announced that he was ready to undergo surgery. In 2015, after receiving numerous emails and letters from the candidates, he found the right candidate.

Valery Spiridonov , a 31-year-old Russian computer scientist, suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman muscular atrophy. The medical condition of this rare genetic disease made him unable to eat or personalize himself. Many times he has announced his willingness to try methods that have a high risk of death to escape this situation, even setting up a Facebook page called Desire for Life.

"I'm scared," he said. "But people don't understand that I don't have many options."

In January 2016, Canavero said he was close to his goal, by conducting a series of experiments on animals and cadavers, with the help of Chinese and Korean scientists. The Spiridonov head implant on the body of a person in a state of plant life is expected to take place at Harbin Medical University in China.

Dr. Canavero also worked closely with Professor Xiaoping Ren of the University, who performed monkey head implants and more than 1,000 mouse-head transplants.

Neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero, who is expected to perform the first human head transplant in 2017. (Photo: Alamy).

Head implantation process

The transplant process will consist of two stages. The first is the "venturing head vein" , which Canavero referred to as "HEAVEN" and the stage of connecting Gemini spine.

The surgery is expected to last 36 hours with the participation of at least 150 doctors, nurses, technicians, psychologists and virtual reality engineers. The cost is about 26 million USD.

First, the body and head will be cooled so that the cells do not die when hypoxic during surgery, Dr. Canavero explained to New Scientist. The patient's neck will be severed and vital blood vessels will be connected to the tubes while separating the spine and body with a $ 260,000 nano-carbon scalpel.

The head will then be transferred to the implant body. The two spinal sections of the head and body will be joined by polyethylene glycol, which makes the cell membrane fat match.

The muscle part and blood supply will then be stitched. The patient will stay in a coma for 3-4 weeks for the body to recover itself while the implant electrodes stimulate the spinal cord to make new neural connections stronger.

If successful, the patient will need 12 months to recover.

"In theory, there may be many things that will work, but the patients' most favorable results are probably only slightly better than Christopher Reeve's , " said John Adler, a neurosurgeon and teacher. Honorary monk at Stanford Medical School, sharing with Newsweek.

Christopher Reeve played in the 80s Superman movie paralyzed after a fall in 1996 and died 9 years later because of a heart attack. Spiridonov may suffer from serious brain damage or suffer from a mental illness that has never been encountered before, if survived after surgery.

"I do not expect this to happen to anyone. I will not agree to anyone to do that to me because there are many things worse than death," said Dr. Hunt Batjer, the new president. appointed by the American Neurosurgery Association, told CNN.

"This work is not feasible. It's crazy," said Dr. Canavero, a fellow countryman in the field, said Lorenzo Pinessi, director of the Department of Neurology at the University of Turin.

Arthur Caplan, founder of the Department of Bioethics at New York University School of Medicine and perhaps the most critical of Dr. Canavero's doctor, called him "a charlatan, empty and loud chariot. " promote yourself " , who " peddles false hopes ".

Many experts in this field are interested in Italian doctors who will publish seven papers in Surgery journals (surgery) and CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics (Neuroscience and Therapeutic Therapy) in the coming months. Here, it seems to be paying too much attention to what the media offers rather than waiting for reliable scientific evidence.

Valery Spiridonov, who volunteered for a head transplant surgery.(Photo: Australscope).

Likelihood of success

This idea has a pretty terrible history. In 1908, American physiologist Charles Guthrie implanted a head into a dog and saw the nostrils on the head working again.

In the 1950s, the pioneer of Soviet implant technology, Vladimir Demikhov, connected 20 puppy heads to adult dog bodies and kept their old heads, using a "vascular sewing machine" to reduce At least time without oxygen. These dogs survived for a month and he recorded strange expressions like the new head trying to bite into the old head ear and "pulling as if trying to separate himself from the body".

American neurosurgeon Robert White successfully performed a head transplant on a monkey in 1970. It was paralyzed from the neck down but was able to hear, smell, taste and move, but it only lived for 9 days.

Dr. Canavero is a long-time fan of Dr. White, who once wrote: "Frankenstein's legend in which an entire human being is made by sewing different body parts together . will become a reality in the early 21st century ".

Michael Sarr, Surgery magazine editor and surgeon at Mayo Hospital, Minnesota, had previously expressed concern about "many ethical issues and many considerations of endorsement and potential consequences. pole of head implants ".

But he also evaluated the technique of Dr. Canavero with potential for treating patients with traumatic spinal cord injury.

"He is a bit weird but a serious person. This is not science fiction, but serious science. There are experimental works that support the idea of ​​nerve membrane transplantation."

The American Academy of Chiropractic and Orthopedic Surgery evaluated Dr. Canavero as "entering neurosurgery with the goal of surpassing human limits".