The main dishes to remember on human head transplants:
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Human head transplants are also known as cephalosomatic anastomosis, and for the moment, are not really possible and will probably not be before 2030.
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Some researchers have tested a human head transplant on corpses; They were also tested on animals. Although this can be possible in the future, it is always a very difficult, moral and practice procedure.
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One of the debates with human head transplants is the moral dilemma of who is? Does the new head belong to the body, or does the old body belong to the new head?
It looks like pure science fiction. Remove a healthy human head from a dying body, connect it to a different healthy body and bring the “person” back to consciousness. Parties in equal parts Frankenstein and Futurama, it is such a bizarre premise that it stretches credibility.
But perhaps surprising, some scientists have argued that a human head transplant is not entirely outside the field of the possibility. Some even tried versions of a laboratory head transplant. Nevertheless, many experts argue that a head transplant should not be attempted on humans as long as we have not completely fought with the huge scientific and ethical obstacles it presents.
However, whether human head transplant becomes really achievable or not, the questions it raises is real – and sometimes deeply disturbing.
Learn more: What is happening in the brain when an organ transplant is rejected?
What is necessary for a human head transplant?
Let’s be clear from the start. A human head transplant, sometimes called cephalosomatic anastomosis, is not currently possible. However, some researchers argue that this could be possible in the relatively close future.
In addition to keeping a human head detached alive and viable during the procedure, surgery would require linking dozens of muscles, arteries and major veins, trachea, esophagus, spine and, above all, spinal cord. And the latter is the real break.
Currently, the complex and delicate human spinal cord cannot be cut and reconnected in a way that preserves the engine or sensory function. Even in patients with spinal cord lesions, regenerative treatments are limited, experimental and largely ineffective.
Who is a human head transplant after?
“The most perplexed element of head transplants could determine who is the donor and who is the recipient,” explains Karen Romfanger, neuroethicist and founder and director of the Institute of Neuroethics. “While many of us could assimilate our identities to our brain and our intellect, many cultural traditions would understand their identity as the constellation of their relationships.”
If you receive a heart transplant, says Romfanger, you will probably say that you are still you.
“But if you receive a brain transplant,” she asks, “what would your answer be? Are you still? The answer is not only scientific, but which depends on societal beliefs.”
Dog and monkey head transplants
Although the concept seems futuristic, scientists have explored head transplantation since the beginning of the 20th century. In 1908, French surgeon Alexis Carrel and American physiologist Charles Guthrie made the first dog’s head transplant. The dog demonstrated certain visual and sound reflex movements after the procedure, but it was euthanized after only a few hours because its condition quickly deteriorated.
In 1954, Soviet Scientist Vladimir Demikhov, pioneer in pulmonary and cardiac transplantation, also carried out a series of controversial dog experiences that involved the transplant of the head and upper body of a puppy on an adult dog. While hybrid animals survived up to 29 days, they finally succumbed to the rejection of organs or surgical complications.
Later, in 1970, the American neurosurgeon Robert White transplanted the head of a Rhesus monkey on the body of another. The monkey has regained consciousness and could feel, see and hear. He even crinized one of the colleagues in White. But because the spinal cord of the monkey was cut, it was paralyzed from the neck down, and it died after eight days due to immune rejection.
When was the first human head transplant?
The first supposed experience of human head transplantation occurred in 2017, when the Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero would have made a complete repetition of a head transplant on two corpses in China. Although it is not a real transplantation (no vital sign has been restored), Canavero insisted that the procedure showed that such a feat was surgically possible.
The discussions around these human experiences were alarming superficial at the time, explains Rommelfanger.
“Many comments were already available on the” yuck “factor of this or” unnatural “aspects of this type of change,” she said. “But what was missing is the immediate recognition of the fundamental concerns of human rights and dignity for initial experiences on unnamed” participants “on which Canavero conducts preliminary studies. In short, where do the bodies come from? ”
Will we never do human head transplants?
Even if science is catching up and human head transplants become a real option in the future, there are enormous ethical concerns about the procedure which must still be approached.
“The greatest concerns concern the lack of respect for human dignity, the lack of appropriate consent and the potential for unwanted, even debilitating unwanted changes,” explains Rommelfanger. For example, who is the person after a successful head transplant? The individual who owned the body? Or the one with the original brain?
And it’s not the only gray area.
“In the case of human head transplants in China,” she says, “it is possible that bodies or heads for individuals can come from people who may not really be” dead “.”
In the United States, the law of uniform Death determination (UDDA) defines death mainly as the irreversible cessation of all brain activity. But not all countries or even the State share this definition.
“”[Y]You can be dead in one state but not in another, ”explains Rommelfanger.
And then there is the question of justice.
“Practically all new technologies or interventions that require costly equipment and rare expertise are not fairly distributed. This intervention would not be different in this regard, ”explains Rommelfanger. “But there is a unique disturbing type of exploitation that could occur with even the experimental phases of this work related to consent, or to its absence. We wonder, where do bodies come from for these experiences?”
A concept of science fiction that confronts the limits of the real world
The notion of human head transplant remains one of the most sensational and controversial ideas in modern medicine. Although it is still firmly in the field of science fiction for the moment, the questions it raises is too real. From whom we are as individuals, the way we define death, at the borders of consent and exploitation, the head transplants press us to really consider not only what medical science can do, but what it should do.
“I directed a club of journals once on one of the scientific articles of Canavero on the procedure, and we received a powerful declaration of a neurosurgeon,” explains Rommelfanger. “They said, in reference to the head transplantation procedure,” there are worse things than death. “”
Learn more: Why the very first human bladder transplant is a great news
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