In a recent paper, Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group explains that many of today’s recent medical developments could actually allow for a procedure as impossibly complicated as a head transplant to actually be possible.
The greatest technical hurdle to [a head transplant] is of course the reconnection of the donor’s (D)’s and recipients (R)’s spinal cords. It is my contention that the technology only now exists for such linkage…. [S]everal up to now hopeless medical connections might benefit from such a procedure.
Canavero bases much of his paper on the many successful head transplants which had been performed on monkeys since sometime the 1970s. What’s novel about Canavero’s method is the cutting of each spinal cord with an extremely sharp knife. Then, the head is mechanically connected to the host, immediately.
This could be a favored alternative to using the body’s natural healing processes, which are active even after the spinal cord has been severed. Canavero’s method, in conjunction, with new technologies in plastics could very well make aspects of science fiction into a reality. It’s alive! Cool.
(Image: TalkBass)
