At least one Italian scientist is completely and totally serious thathead transplants on humansmight soon be potential . How the hell ?
In a unexampled newspaper , Dr. Sergio Canavero , a member of the Turin Neuromodulation group , discusses how scientists have been experimenting with head transplantation on brute for more than 40 days . But these doc Frankenstein have n’t ever been capable to nail the final whole tone of link up the spinal corduroy of one subject field to the spinal cord of the other . Canavero thinkshe ’s found a solution :
The bang-up technical vault to [ a head transplant ] is of course the reconnection of the bestower ’s ( D ) ’s and recipients ( R ) ’s spinal electric cord . It is my argument that the technology only now subsist for such linkage … . [ S]everal up to now hopeless medical connections might gain from such a procedure .
A head transplant — not to be jumble with the equally half-baked Einstein transplant — involves decapitating a pass and reattaching it to a bestower trunk . Hypothetically , it ’s a solution for quadriplegics experiencing widespread organ nonstarter . It ’s not going to help those citizenry take the air again , but say their body were failing them and their brains were still operate ? A nous transplantation would be a last resort .
Canavero uses the example of Case Western Reserve scientist Robert White to make his case . In 1970 , White completed ahead graft with Rhesus monkeys . It was mostly successful — the recipient monkey was able to hear , taste , scent , and see , and it survived for a while after the military operation was complete .
But the function is incredible bad . Both patients have to be in the same operating room , and the head being transplant has to be cool to between 55 and 59 degree Fahrenheit . The donor physical structure must also be cool down and placed under cardiac arrest . Surgeons must move fast to attach the head , and once that ’s done , the donor torso ’s tenderness can be restarted , and the sleep of the body ’s systems vivify . In summary , you have to be killed and chilled in order for a head transplant to happen .
The terminal step is the all - important spinal corduroy reconnection . This step has never even been essay , so this is very , very theoretical . But Canavero cites an experiment from last week from Case Western Reserve and the Cleveland Clinic where scientist were able-bodied to sever andreattach the spinal electric cord in ratswith temperate succeeder . The rats were able to urinate again , but they could n’t walk successfully . Canavero say this is possible in humans , by cutting corduroy with a super sharp tongue then mechanically touch base the spinal cord of one soul to the spinal electric cord of the other , fusing them together using a plastic , like polythene glycol .
Obviously this is all hypothetical . Very , very suppositious . And there are plenty of honourable issues that come into question . But who sleep with Frankenstein had any foundation in world ? [ Quartz ]
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