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Man volunteers for world first head transplant operation

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C

crazygambit

Member
Khaz said:
That's the billion dollar question. Doctors are pretending they can sew each neurons back. This is obviously bullshit. If it was true, they would be making millions in curing crushed spines everywhere, not making bold claims of head transplants. The guy will have a healthy, lifeless body at best.

[edit] This is what a spinal cord looks like when cut.
Click to expand...

Isn't that an improvement anyway over the one he has now?

It's basically being a tetraplegic or dead. Tough choice to be sure, but it's his choice.
 
E

E the Shaggy

Junior Member
So many questions.

How do you keep the body less head and headless body alive to do all this? How did they get the body? How could this possibly work?
 
C

CrunchyFrog

Member
params7 said:
That article also says the same operation almost succeeded on a monkey.

Even if there is little chance for this to work, the man who volunteered knows this maybe as good as electing for an euthanasia. Given his illness, he doesn't have much choice. But if his operation could result in findings that can help maybe the next operation succeed, humanity as a whole would significantly benefit from breaking this biological barrier.
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Not only was that only once, and only on a nonhuman subject, but read again. The operation with the head transplant to a monkey made no effort to regenerate the spinal cord, the monkey head was kept alive artificially even post op, and the head died of graft rejection days later. Just because soyouresayingtheresachance doesn't give you full license to do whatever the fuck crazy human experiments. It won't work, and this poor man is taking the year or two he has left and reducing it to a few unimaginably horrifying and painful days.

Not to mention, if this guy really can properly reconnect the spinal cord, there are far less invasive, less risky, and less gruesome ways of proving and refining his methods ahead of time. Paraplegic with partially severed cords could easily submit to testing if this miracle neuron fiber connecting polyethylwhosiwhatsit actually works without, you know, taking their whole goddamn head off.

In fact I'd be willing to bet my head that the surgeon doesn't actually plan on doing the procedure, just making an outlandish claim to make headlines and hopefully attract venture capital from some rich dupe to further his research, whatever the hell that may be.
 
C

CapitalismSucks DonkeyBalls

Banned
That neurosurgeon's TEDx talk just made him seem like he's trying to sell the audience something versus actually educating them about the operation. Using a bundle of spaghetti to illustrate the spinal cord is a little too simplistic and he seems to discuss fusing the spinal cord back together as being easy-peasy with some type of superglue.

36 hour operation with 150 doctors and nurses costing 10 million? Good luck.

He also reminds me of Hugo Strange, so maybe that's why he comes off as a nutcase.
 
U

Uncle_Classy

Member
industrian said:
I hope that this is successful. Muscle wasting disorders are no laughing matter. Everyone deserves to get ahead in life.
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You should be ashamed of yourself.

Anyway, I can't imagine this ever working successfully. I mean, even beyond the fact that the body is pretty much guaranteed to reject the head over time, even with meds, properly connecting all the nerves from the base of the brain to the new spinal cord just doesn't seem possible.
 
S

SuperEpicGuy

Banned
HoodWinked said:
this was a long time ago and I dont even know if im remembering correctly but I saw a story about a monkey getting a head transplant but it ended up paralyzed from the neck down.
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If I were that guy I'd take quadriplegic over dead any day.

If this works, that'll truly be a glorious day for medicine and surgery.
 
JordanN

JordanN

Banned
LakeEarth said:
I'm willing to bet that eventually he'll change his mind.
Click to expand...

So a brain transplant?
0f80Av4.png
 
M

Mr Swine

Banned
I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, why hasn't anyone done any more head transplant and this pops up, bizarre!
 
G

GodofWine

Member
Why would this cost 10 million dollars?? It's still just surgeons, nurses and existing equipment...malpractice insurance??? Even for voluntary surgery where neither 'person' would use? (Ones dead already 😕)
 
B

belmonkey

Member
I'm personally curious to see how using a clone of oneself as a recipient body would work. Should be a lot easier than using people with very different genetic information (legal and moral issues aside).

I think the transplant operation from the article would fail, although it sure would be something if it didn't.

I don't suppose transplanting brain matter alone without even dealing with the spinal cord is a thing?
 
N

Necromanti

Member
I'd say this "experiment" has exactly a...0% chance of being successful, even if the donor body was a carbon copy of the one belonging to the person being decapitated.
 
K

King Tubby

Member
People may have performed head transplants on animals before, but not to the scale that this guy is attempting (actually fusing the spinal cords and trying to avoid total paralysis). He should try the spinal transplant on an animal first before testing out his hypothesis on a human.
 
sakipon

sakipon

Member
King Tubby said:
People may have performed head transplants on animals before, but not to the scale that this guy is attempting (actually fusing the spinal cords and trying to avoid total paralysis). He should try the spinal transplant on an animal first before testing out his hypothesis on a human.
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That's an old-fashioned view, throughout history there's been so many useless animal experiments made that do not translate well to human biology. We have a volunteer, better to try the real business. I'm sure one could find more volunteers out of fatally ill people like him.
 
Shmuppers

Shmuppers

Member
Hard not to sympathize for the guy, but there's no way he's going to get a favorable outcome out of this. If he does survive, he'll be a vegetable.
 
I

IDKAboutThat

Member
I'm in a wheelchair due to a degenerative form of muscular dystrophy, and if this gets viable before robot bodies become a thing I am absolutely signing up
 
K

King Tubby

Member
sakipon said:
That's an old-fashioned view, throughout history there's been so many useless animal experiments made that do not translate well to human biology. We have a volunteer, better to try the real business. I'm sure one could find more volunteers out of fatally ill people like him.
Click to expand...

Serious post? Animal testing has resulted in an incredible amount of medical/biological research breakthroughs. In any event, some practice with animals is better than trying a technique for the very first time on a human.
 
B

Benzychenz

Member
I'm more curious about how the doctor could manage to cut someones head off.

I feel a little lightheaded just thinking about it.
 
RoadHazard

RoadHazard

Gold Member
This is really a body transplant and not a head transplant, isn't it? Your brain is "you", not the rest of your body.
 
K

Knoxcore

Member
It's not really a head transplant, it's a body transplant. When doctors transplant something they are getting rid of an organ. Heart, lungs, kidneys etc. Here they are getting rid of the body for a new one. I think he's transplant is the wrong way to think about this and more sensationalist than accurate I'm it's description.
 
T

Trojan X

Banned
fluffydelusions said:
tumblr_nm7x7wwj5o1tlb56zo1_250.gif
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Omg! Lol!!

On a serious note this sounds absolutely insane, but if it is indeed possible and the situation makes it worth a try then he should go for it.. but my worse fear is body rejection and nearon not rectivation. If the head rejects the body then he is fucked. If the nearons don't reactivate then he is paralysed or much much worse. My gosh, i don't know how to fathom this. Good luck, mr.
 
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