Terminally ill man set to undergo world's first full HEAD transplant by doctor branded "nuts"

a reply to: Anyafaj

What I'm most curious if it's triggered by the Thymus. The gland is in kids. As our patient had as a child. It does not function after puberty.
But I can not find anything yet to link that.

Agartha and Phage could really be useful right now.


I'm drawn by this because of the 80% rate of this occurring in small children.


Note: I'm not trying to thread drift. But this is the reason for the said head transplant.

a reply to: rukia

Lawnmower man.. hands down !
total oxymoron that looks...
On my part.. hands down, thumbs up!

Oh god... !!!


Freejack also is an accepted answer.

This makes me philosophical. Maybe we'll find out if the entire personality, and what a person feels is their 'soul' are all in the head- so to speak.

Different chemical balance from the new body...could it change his personality, or his feeling of 'me' in his secret self?


****if he were to live.

a reply to: Bigburgh

BB or anyone really , i am asking you because you seem to have a good grip on all things medical . If this was to be successful and i am sure one day something along these lines will be considered a difficult but doable operation , what rejects what , body rejects head , they both reject each other or head rejects body .

This would also once again raise the question of the ethics of cloning. I have heard from several doctors including Dr. Ryke Hamer out of Germany that the secret to most diseases is that they start in the brain, and not the organs that malfunction. He said that type 1 and 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases all started in the brain. If Dr. Hamer was right (he supposedly cured people of type 1 diabetes-which is incurable by the medical establishment today) and had his medical license removed in Germany because his treatments were "too effective", then this procedure would not work to heal any disease that starts in the brain.

The man the story is about is brave, I'll give him that. I hope it works for him, but if Dr. Hamer was right, then it probably won't. This could go far in answering the age-old question of "Where does disease really begin?". It's still very creepy though...

originally posted by: Bigburgh
a reply to: Anyafaj

I'm now reading up on the disease in a book. And looking online.
The disease seems to be a genetic/DNA malformation so I'm going to say no. But

Here's a link if it helps.
Key word is autosomal recessive.


www.rarediseases.org...

The test subjects died 8 days later.. that not successful enough in my books.
But like I said. If your are going to die. You might consider taken a shot.

The confusing part is. It specifies tongue/chewing difficulties. So if the head is on a new body. What about the muscles of the face. Maybe he's not that bad as far as that goes. I don't have have his chart.. lol. Or near the education on this disease.

Thanks for that link. They had my daughter's rare disorder listed as well.

Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum

I can understand him wanting to try this considering he's terminally ill. After all, it's not like he has much to lose. Since he's been talking to this doctor for 2 years, he's obviously put a LOT of thought into this and it's impulsive. I just hope by the time the doctor raises the $7.5 million for the surgery and gets the 100+ nurses and doctors he claims to need, the patient hasn't died beforehand.

originally posted by: Bigburgh
a reply to: Anyafaj

What I'm most curious if it's triggered by the Thymus. The gland is in kids. As our patient had as a child. It does not function after puberty.
But I can not find anything yet to link that.

Agartha and Phage could really be useful right now.


I'm drawn by this because of the 80% rate of this occurring in small children.

Note: I'm not trying to thread drift. But this is the reason for the said head transplant.

According to this it's in the spine,

Spinal Muscular Atrophy

originally posted by: Hushabye
This makes me philosophical. Maybe we'll find out if the entire personality, and what a person feels is their 'soul' are all in the head- so to speak.

Different chemical balance from the new body...could it change his personality, or his feeling of 'me' in his secret self?


****if he were to live.

I think THAT would be the most interesting part of this.

in a hundred or so years, transplanting our heads/brains into a cloned body will be standard practice. probably done mostly for vanity purposes (is your body edging towards its 30s? time for a newer model))

My question is how is this doctor going to keep both brains of the donor and recipient from suffering damage from the lack of oxygen?

originally posted by: muse7
My question is how is this doctor going to keep both brains of the donor and recipient from suffering damage from the lack of oxygen?

Thats the easy part...

futurama heads

Well, if you're going to die anyway, might as well give it a shot.

Interesting to say the very least. If it was me in that situ, I'd want to try a womens body. I'd look after it, promise!!!!! I could get pregnant and all. Whoa....I won't sleep tonight. Crikey!!!! Better have another bourbon methinks...


Reckon I could get a unique child support.

Cheers and laughs,

Bally.

The real kicker for such a transplant is the spinal cord, and the nerve impulses.

The brain controls ALL automated functions of the body, from adrenal responses, to heart-beat and breathing, to letting you know you have to pee.

IF the connection, which according to current medical science, isn't possible to make properly, doesn't work none of the systems will properly be taken over. No heart beating, no breathing, no other systems either. He would be attaching a living head, to essentially, a dead body.

It would be akin to wiring up a pre-year 2000 computer, before all the connections were made dummy-proof, so that you could only plug the proper cable, in the proper port / connector. (referencing the internal connectors, not the keyboard, ethernet, video cable plugins).

If it were me, being tetraplegic in a dying body and offered the option to be tetraplegic in a "healty" body.

Why not! Nerve reconnection is not in a so distant future after all!!!

Not long ago, I heard that a team from US was working at using an ultrafast laser probe to "reconnect" properly axon.

originally posted by: BoxFulder
The man knows what he's doing, its akin to assistant suicide. He's terminally ill so he has found a way to get around the law. He knows he will be killed.

I see what you're saying, but really, there are more private and dignified ways to commit suicide aside from having your head cut off and broadcasting your intention to do it to the entire world.

I reckon the guy thinks his chances of surviving the procedure are slim, and even if he survives the transplant, getting motor function to his surrogate body is probably going to be even slimmer odds, but if he is certain to die of his wasting disease soon anyway...a slim chance at life is better than zero chance isn't it?

This type of thing has been talked about for decades, any new technology or new medical procedure meant for Human beings, has to be tried for the first time on an actual Human being...this guy has decided to be the first.

He's as much a pioneer as the doctor is who's doing the transplant.

Unless stem cell tech can help splice his spinal cord and restore a high percentage of motility, he'll be a quadriplegic..but he'll be alive..as it stands now, he's confined to a chair and his body is killing him..so even if he can't move, he'll be alive and able to wait and hope new technology will restore his nervous system.

Good luck to him.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Thank you for guiding me to this incredibly interesting thread, kind sir!

The disease is a type I (severe) spinal muscular atrophy that is evident during pregnancy, at birth or within the first couple of months of birth. The majority of children (95%) with WH disease die of respiratory failure before they are 2. Which makes this man a very special man indeed, as he is 30.

I read about Canavero before as we are from the same city (Turin, North Italy). He will cool down both donor and recipient's bodies before linking all major blood vessels with surgical tubes. He will then detach the head and cord of both bodies and attach the patient's one to the donor. He claims that by implanting electrodes he can provide electrical stimulation to the spinal cord to ensure new nerve connections. He also claims that these new nerve connections will restore the spinal cord functions allowing the recipient to walk within the next 12 months after the operation.

That is where I am doubtful. If the recipient's spinal cord is already diseased, can it be healed with a a new body with working nerve connection? (I will have to read more on it this evening to see what I can find).

I don't think the procedure will go ahead anyway. There's a big ethical issue here with terrible consequences for the future if it falls into the wrong hands. I don't think western countries will allow Dr. Canavero to perform the procedure. Most neurologists and surgeons are against it already.

I am against it. Like somebody mentioned here already, imagine the elites of our world living forever in new bodies. Or the next extreme type of cosmetic surgery where you really get a brand new you!

At least he would have tried, you know dying from a no longer responding lung (suffocation) is no funny way to end the show... I would say yes to doctor Frankenstein anytime!

But I think for the near future, that using a microcontroller to capture and encode the signalling from the brain and then retransmit it using a well defined electronic transmission protocol to all organs would be much more feasible for now. After all, most standard serial electronic protocols are much faster than axonal signalling.