Subject
This is a story I have been following avidly for about 3 years now, the first human head transpant and it's happening in December!
The Inspiration
We all know the story of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein well unless you live in a cave somewhere which in that case you probably wouldn't be reading this on Steemit right now. It's the story of Doctor Frankenstein taking pieces from different bodies and sewing them together then re-animating them from the dead using electricity in a crazy attempt to play god. Well along comes Dr. Sergio Canavero an Italian surgeon who took his inspiration from Mary Shelley's classic horror story but instead of bringing someone back to life he's more interested in prolonging life by taking the head of a terminally ill patient and re-attaching it to the body of someone who is brain dead.
The legacy
Back in 1970 a group of scientists thought of the impossible to remove the head of one monkey and re-attach it to a second monkey's body, although the monkey survived it died 8 days later when it lost the ability to move or breath. Why is it only now in 2017 that this groundbreaking surgery is being attempted again?. The inability so far to 'fuse' the two spinal cords together. Due to the incredible complex nature of the human spinal cord and the millions of receptors involved in the correlation between the brain's neural network and the spinal cord's receptors no technology has existed that can bridge these two systems without losing all function.
The glue
Dr. Sergio 'Frankenstein' Canavero has found that the use of polyethylene glycol or PEG preserves the nerve cell membraines which will allow him to effectively 'glue' the spinal cord of the head to the spinal cord of the body. The 'glue' as Sergio explains is instrumental to the entire procedure and will allow a percentage of the cell membraines from one spinal cord to fuse to that of the adopted body and as he points out although the patient will most likely have no ability to move after the operation he points out that victims of severe car crashes who severed 90% of their spinal cord in the accident have later gone on to regain complete movement due to the body's ability to repair the damage caused to 90% of the cord.
Valery Spiridonov
Human transplant - who the hell volunteered for that?
Russian Valery Spiridonov suffers with the chronic condition Werdnig-Hoffman's disease a very rare form of muscular atrophy in which he only has a limited length of time to live. He volunteered to be the first human to undergo this revolutionary procedure. Although if the operation is a failure he will have greatly reduced his life he feels it is the right thing to do and believes he will be remembered as a pioneer regardless of the outcome.
So how will the procedure work?
Velery will be placed under anaesthetic and his head chilled to a low temperature preserving it and precisely decapitating him maintaining function via tubing preserving only his head and the portion of his spinal cord which still remains healthy via the 'glue'. The donor body will be prepared by decapitating precisely at the same point of the spinal cord that Valery's head will be attached again preserving those all important cell membraines with the 'glue'. Then finaly attaching Valery's preserved head to the donor body and carefully and precisely fusing the spinal cords together with the PEG. The entire operation is expected to take at least 36 hours and will involve over 150 surgeons. Dr. Canavero believes Valery will have to remain perfectly still for 6 months after the operation in order to allow the spinal cords to fuse and repair before he will find out whether science fiction became reality.
Conclusion
This is an extremely exciting prospect and could mean life for those whose bodies are terminally ill. But wait, what about the implications of this procedure should it be successful?.
Dr. Canavero is not sure what would happen if you placed the head of a pensioner on the body of a teenager, the body's new cells could rejuvinate the pensioners head.
It has been observed that when someone recieves a heart transplant the recipient sometimes picks up pyschological traits of the deceased donor which indicates that the heart is capable of storing memories to some capacity will Valery's personality alter post op.
If it is successful what is there to stop the super rich from using their money to 'get a new body' everytime the one they have breaks down possibly with the use of clone bodies meaning the rich won't die and as we know the donor body is brain dead in this instance what's to stop a 'body black market' much like organ theft where people are kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder for those who can't afford clones?
Food for thought.....
Dr.Sergio Canavero is attempting this procedure December 2017 in China, the results could alter our species by offering a way to 'cheat death'.
Thank you for reading my article it's something I've been reading about for around 3 years now and it's only when it popped up in my news feed I thought wow it's actually happening!.
All images were taken from getty images and pixabay and are free source