Head transplant is becoming a reality

steddyeddy

Valery Spiridonov, a terminally ill Russian man has volunteered to undergo a controversial head transplant operation. The surgeon, Sergio Canavero is the one carrying out the operation and he thinks it will work. I think he's a quack and I've never heard such misrepresentation of science of someone with a degree. His ideas don't make sense. I don't think he should be alowed to carry out this and I that the man has a god complex. What's everyone else think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ALCm5tcuaI

The_Valeyard

Thread already exists.

If he's terminally ill and has given full consent why not

darkpagandeath

worked well for that monkey in the 70s

dmc17

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Thread already exists.

This is a thread transplant!

Junkyard Tom

There was a film about something similar where your man has his head transplanted onto a fly, and the fly's head was transplanted onto the man.

'Out of Africa' I think it was called.

steddyeddy

bluewolf wrote: »

If he's terminally ill and has given full consent why not

Because it could make him a lot worse and it's barbaric.

The_Valeyard

dmc17 wrote: »

This is a thread transplant!

Hahaha. Love it

But of a headache for mods though.

darkpagandeath

steddyeddy wrote: »

Because it could make him a lot worse and it's barbaric.

Sure you would probably say the same about a heart lung liver kidney ?

mister gullible

a b normalMarty-Feldman-1-.jpg

darkpagandeath

The_Valeyard wrote: »

Hahaha. Love it

But of a headache for mods though.

Nah they will have the skill to rejoin these topics.

IamNotNumber

steddyeddy wrote: »

Valery Spiridonov, a terminally ill Russian man has volunteered to undergo a controversial head transplant operation. The surgeon, Sergio Canavero is the one carrying out the operation and he thinks it will work. I think he's a quack and I've never heard such misrepresentation of science of someone with a degree. His ideas don't make sense. I don't think he should be alowed to carry out this and I that the man has a god complex. What's everyone else think?

The man is terminally ill,he volunteered..if he wants to do it and it advances human knowledge and saves other lives then I say go for it.Obviously Dr. Heiter should put a cats head on a giraffe first for proof of principle.

steddyeddy

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Sure you would probably say the same about a heart lung liver kidney ?

No because the techniques that are used to carry these out are tried and tested.

steddyeddy

IamNotNumber wrote: »

The man is terminally ill,he volunteered..if he wants to do it and it advances human knowledge and saves other lives then I say go for it.Obviously Dr. Heiter should put a cats head on a giraffe first for proof of principle.

Do you understand what could go wrong?

steddyeddy

steddyeddy wrote: »

Because it could make him a lot worse and it's barbaric.

A lot worse than terminally ill soon to be dead ??

steddyeddy

bluewolf wrote: »

A lot worse than terminally ill soon to be dead ??

Yes.

This week, 30-year-old Russian man, Valery Spiridonov, announced that he will become the subject of the first human head transplant ever performed, saying he volunteers to have his head removed and installed on another person’s body.
If this sounds like some kind of sick joke, we’re right there with you, but unfortunately, this is all too real. Earlier this year, Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero outlined the transplant technique he intends to follow in the journal Surgical Neurology International, and said he planned to launch the project at the annual conference of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons (AANOS) in the US in June, where he will invite other researchers to join him in his head transplant dream.
At the time, it sounded completely outlandish - and it still is - but the difference now is that Canavero actually has a living, breathing volunteer willing to be the guinea pig for what Christopher Hootan at The Independent says is predicted to be a 36-hour operation requiring the assistance of 150 doctors and nurses. You can read about the procedure here.
Hootan brings home what’s really at stake for Spiridonov - it’s not just death he has to worry about:
"A Werdnig-Hoffman disease sufferer with rapidly declining health, Spiridonov is willing to take a punt on this very experimental surgery and you can't really blame him, but while he is prepared for the possibility that the body will reject his head and he will die, his fate could be considerably worse than death,” says Hootan.
"I would not wish this on anyone," said Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons. "I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death."
From speaking to several medical experts, Hootan has pin-pointed a problem that even the most perfectly performed head transplant procedure cannot mitigate - we have literally no idea what this will do to Spiridonov’s mind. There’s no telling what the transplant - and all the new connections and foreign chemicals that his head and brain will have to suddenly deal with - will do to Spiridonov’s psyche, but as Hootan puts it rather chillingly, it "could result in a hitherto never experienced level and quality of insanity".

steddyeddy

You cannot experiment on men even volunteers because they are terminally ill.

Renegade Mechanic

steddyeddy wrote: »

No because the techniques that are used to carry these out are tried and tested.

Isn't that what science is about? Testing? Experimenting? It's no more barbaric than pretty much anything that's lead to the knowledge we already have, of the human body.

Banjo String

Sudden urge to play it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rAOyh7YmEc

Kylo Ren

More of a body transplant, no?

_Tombstone_

steddyeddy wrote: »

What's everyone else think?

The only thing that made me say WTF about this...or anything lately, was that he has transsexuals lining up for this as a replacement to gender Reassignment Surgery.

http://www.newsweek.com/head-transplants-gender-reassignment-surgery-gender-dysphoria-310201


He reckons he can reattach the Cord, which is the main reason the Monkey Head Transplant failed years ago, they've done it in Rats so we'll see.

steddyeddy

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

Isn't that what science is about? Testing? Experimenting? It's no more barbaric than pretty much anything that's lead to the knowledge we already have, of the human body.

There are very clear rules on experimenting on humans.

Desolation Of Smug

Another Russian car-crash dash-cam thread...

Mickey H

Can I have Sophia Vergara's head?

folamh

Tonight on 'Sick Sad World'

steddyeddy

steddyeddy wrote: »

You cannot experiment on men even volunteers because they are terminally ill.

I don't know, if he has full understanding of what the consequences could be and has consented still ...

steddyeddy

bluewolf wrote: »

I don't know, if he has full understanding of what the consequences could be and has consented still ...

But that's the thing, he doesn't know the consequences. No one does.

Renegade Mechanic

steddyeddy wrote: »

But that's the thing, he doesn't know the consequences. No one does.

It can't be that hard to guess, though? I mean you've got A: Sucess, which is of course unlikely to the extreme.
B: A "live" brain that is kept alive by the functions of the body but cannot command it, ie quadriplegic.
C: Excruciating pain stemming from an antibody attack from the main body rejecting the new head or something like that.
Everything in between.
Either way, I imagine there's at least some sort of "put me out of my misery" clause for when it goes pear shaped.

Renegade Mechanic

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

It can't be that hard to guess, though? I mean you've got A: Sucess, which is of course unlikely to the extreme.
B: A "live" brain that is kept alive by the functions of the body but cannot command it, ie quadriplegic.
C: Excruciating pain stemming from an antibody attack from the main body rejecting the new head or something like that.
Everything in between.
Either way, I imagine there's at least some sort of "put me out of my misery" clause for when it goes pear shaped.

Exactly

I also don't think we can refuse to do things just because we don't know the exact consequences ... that's kinda what science is

bb1234567

God, seems so unethical. Really gives me the creeps..hope the poor guy doesn't suffer.

steddyeddy

Scientific experiments often don't have foreseeable consequences. That's exactly why you don't perform them on humans. Some experiments you can have an idea of what's going to happen but in this case the surgeon doesn't have clue 1. Some of the things he has been saying have been very unscientific. I think it's a vanity project for him rather than real science.

He's just like the doctor who claims he can clone humans.

20Cent

Doctor sounds like a right head case.

steddyeddy

20Cent wrote: »

Doctor sounds like a right head case.

He is a headcase. Neurosurgeons are saying he's not making sense.

Renegade Mechanic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36lSzUMBJnc

steddyeddy

If we make a drug there's usually some idea what will happen if it goes to clinical trials. We first use animal models but sometimes what happens to non human animals doesn't translate well to humans. In this case they have done very few trials using animal models and the guy says he has a new procedure that will work based on his theories. The theories don't hold water scientifically so in my view this is too soon to be performing clinical trials.

Desolation Of Smug

Giving head was never so serious.

Links234

_Tombstone_ wrote: »

The only thing that made me say WTF about this...or anything lately, was that he has transsexuals lining up for this as a replacement to gender Reassignment Surgery.

http://www.newsweek.com/head-transplants-gender-reassignment-surgery-gender-dysphoria-310201

Well that's not the case, nowhere in the article does it say trans people are lining up for this, he merely suggests that this could be a replacement for current surgical methods, nothing about any demand for it, and they even quote Paris Lees who says that it's not the answer trans people are looking for. Considering that quite a lot of trans people aren't interesting in having any surgical reconstruction as it is, and hormone therapy is often enough to eleviate gender dysphoria, I seriously can't imagine many going for such an extreme step.

NIMAN

I often wake up after a night on the beer and feel like I have someone else's head on me.

Saralee4

There is already a thread on this in AH!

Links234

Saralee4 wrote: »

There is already a thread on this in AH!

This is AH

Saralee4

Links234 wrote: »

This is AH

Yea there are two threads raised talking about the same thing both in AH. It's hard to follow both.

The other one "someone to undergo world's first head transplant"

steddyeddy

Well mods maybe you can merge threads?

Kylo Ren

steddyeddy wrote: »

Well mods maybe you can merge threads?

We need a thread transplant!

Macavity.

The man has consented, I'm sure he knows the various risks involved. I hope it all works out, but I predict serious complications with this procedure.

catallus

Well, I'm a doctor and i say it will work.

_Tombstone_

Links234 wrote: »

Well that's not the case, nowhere in the article does it say trans people are lining up for this, he merely suggests that this could be a replacement for current surgical methods, nothing about any demand for it, and they even quote Paris Lees who says that it's not the answer trans people are looking for. Considering that quite a lot of trans people aren't interesting in having any surgical reconstruction as it is, and hormone therapy is often enough to eleviate gender dysphoria, I seriously can't imagine many going for such an extreme step.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/03/health/italian-neurosurgeon-says-human-head-transplant-will-happen-in-two-years/

He says it to CNN there, I'm on phone alot at the min, getting links are a pita.

JupiterKid

Sounds bizarre and rather ghoulish to be perfectly honest.

steddyeddy

JupiterKid wrote: »

Sounds bizarre and rather ghoulish to be perfectly honest.

He's been described by neuroscientists as being "completely nuts".

Leif Johnson

Everytime I hear stuff like this, I try to figure out how seemingly impossible stuff like this is becoming a reality, only to be met with bizarre confusion.

Saralee4

A point that was made on the other thread also was the fact that even if it was successful the brain or head would not accept the body and have difficulty controlling it or syncing with it.

Also I'm just thinking now what if you had a fat head put on a really skinny body?

steddyeddy

Leif Johnson wrote: »

Everytime I hear stuff like this, I try to figure out how seemingly impossible stuff like this is becoming a reality, only to be met with bizarre confusion.

There's a difference here. Partially paralysed people have walked due to stem cells and epigenetic reprogramming. Amazing things in science have been accomplished but they were based on plausible science. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.