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Sensation: the first head transplant to a corpse has been announced. A successful human head transplant took place: the neurosurgeon received an “updated” corpse. A head transplant took place

The science that studies organ transplantation is called transplantology. Just a few decades ago, the movement of tissue from one organism to another was considered something incredible. In modern surgical practice, internal organ transplantation is widespread. This is practiced to a greater extent in developed countries with a high level of medical care. Liver, kidney, and heart transplants are successfully performed. In recent years, doctors have begun performing limb transplants. Despite the high professionalism of surgeons, some operations end in failure. After all, the body does not always “accept” foreign organs. In some cases, tissue rejection may occur. Despite this, a famous practicing surgeon from Italy decided to take an incredible risk. The doctor is planning a head transplant operation. To many, this idea seems incredible and doomed to failure. However, surgeon Sergio Canavero is confident that head transplantation will be a huge breakthrough in medicine. To date, studies and attempts have been carried out to implement this manipulation on laboratory animals.

Head transplant surgery: description

In 2013, an Italian surgeon made a sensational statement to the whole world. He planned an operation to transplant the head of a living person onto the body of a corpse. This procedure has become of interest to people suffering from serious diseases that cause immobilization. Surgeon Sergio Canavero has already contacted the intended head donor. He turned out to be a young man from Russia. The patient was diagnosed with a severe pathology of the nervous system - congenital spinal muscle atrophy. At the moment, Valery Spiridonov is 30 years old. Despite quality care, his condition is rapidly deteriorating. The only functioning part of the patient's body is the head. Valery Spiridonov is aware of all the risks of the planned event, but he agrees to go for it. The first human head transplant operation is scheduled to take place in 2017.

Sergio Canavero estimates that the transplant will take about 36 hours. To carry out all stages of the operation, more than 100 qualified surgeons will be needed. During the transplant, doctors will change several times. A head transplant is a very complex surgical procedure. To carry it out successfully, you will need to connect many vessels, nerve fibers, bones and soft tissues of the neck. The most difficult stage of the operation will be the fastening of the spinal cord. For this purpose, a special glue based on polyethylene glycol was produced. Thanks to this substance, the growth of neurons occurs. Each stage of the operation is considered risky and can result in death. However, this does not frighten patient Valery Spiridonov. The doctor who planned the sensational operation is also optimistic. Canavero is almost confident of a favorable outcome of the procedure.

Ethical aspects of head transplantation

A topic such as human head transplantation causes heated emotions and controversy not only among doctors. In addition to the difficulties in performing a transplant and the risks to the patient’s life, there is another side to the coin. Thus, many people consider the planned procedure unacceptable from religious and ethical points of view. Indeed, it is difficult to comprehend that the head of a living person will be separated from the body and attached to the neck of a dead person. However, people suffering from severe progressive pathologies do not have to think about ethics. For many patients, a head transplant will be an incredible miracle. After all, people doomed to disability will have a new body. Due to the fact that the operation has not yet been carried out and its outcome is unknown, the public has a controversial attitude towards this issue.

Research

The first research in the field of head transplantation was the experiment of scientist Charles Guthrie. It was held in 1908. The experiment involved transplanting a second head onto the dog's neck. The animal did not live long, but it was possible to note a slight reflex activity of the transplanted body part.

In the 1950s, Russian scientist Vladimir Demikhov managed to achieve better results. Although his laboratory animals also did not survive long after transplantation, the transplanted heads were fully functional. Demikhov significantly reduced the time of hypoxia of separated tissues. Similar operations on dogs were later carried out by Chinese scientists. In the 1970s, White transplanted a head into a monkey. At the same time, the animal’s sense organs functioned.

In 2002, experiments were conducted on laboratory rats in Japan. As for the planned intervention, polyethylene glycol was used. The dissected tissues were refrigerated to prevent cell death. In addition, Sergio Canavero stated that his latest research involving monkeys has recently resulted in a head transplant. It ended happily. The scientist regards the positive result as a signal to conduct an experiment on humans. If the public and scientific community approve of this project, people will soon learn about its results.

Human head transplant: the opinion of scientists

Despite the Italian surgeon's positive attitude, scientists and doctors do not share his enthusiasm. Most of them do not believe in the success of the venture. In addition, many doctors believe that head transplants are unacceptable for ethical reasons. The pessimism of colleagues does not affect the scientist’s decision in any way. Canavero recently said that the transplant would take place with the consent of the state board members.

For what diseases is surgery necessary?

At the moment, it is too early to say whether such an operation will be performed in practice in the future. However, if the outcome is favorable, the scientist will experience incredible success. If head transplantation becomes possible, many patients will gain healthy bodies. Indications for transplantation include:

Tetraplegia developed against the background of cerebrovascular accident.
Muscular spinal atrophy.
Spinal cord injuries at the level of the cervical vertebrae.

Difficulties of surgical intervention

A head transplant is a technically complex procedure. During its implementation, doctors may encounter many difficulties. Among them:

Tissue death during head separation. To prevent this, scientists intend to cool the head to 15 degrees. At the same time, neurons must maintain their viability.
Risk of rejection of the transplanted body part.
Long-term connection of the spinal cord after surgery. To ensure that the nerve tissue is properly mapped, the patient is planned to be put into a comatose state for 1 month.

Possible outcomes of head transplant surgery

Considering that such operations have not been performed on people before, the outcome of this procedure is impossible to predict. Even if all manipulations are performed correctly, it is unknown how this experiment may end. Scientists do not exclude the possibility that the spinal cord will be damaged and the patient will not be able to move. However, even in this case, the operation will be an incredible breakthrough in transplantation.

Head transplant cost

How much does a head transplant cost and when will it be introduced into practice? It is not yet possible to answer these questions. Nevertheless, some information is available. Thus, an assessment of the equipment and necessary materials for the planned transplantation showed that the cost would be about 11 million dollars. In addition, in case of a favorable outcome, long-term rehabilitation will be required. According to the Italian scientist, the patient will be able to move independently a year after the operation.

The latest achievement of Sergio Canavero and colleagues is the transplantation of the head of one rat onto the body of another using the circulatory system of a third.

Peng-Wei Li et al., / CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics

Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero, in an interview with the OOOM portal, told details about the first human head transplant operation in history.

Canavero first announced his intention to transplant the head of a paralyzed man onto a healthy brain-dead body in 2013. For this purpose, the international collaboration HEAVEN/GEMINI was created. According to the plans, the patient should be subjected to deep cooling (up to 15 degrees Celsius), the head should be surgically separated from the body, connected to a heart-lung machine, and transplanted onto a previously prepared donor body, sequentially connecting all anatomical structures.

To ensure the restoration of the entire spinal cord, the surgeon intends to treat its sections with polyethylene glycol (PEG), which in the laboratory has demonstrated the ability to “glue” damaged cell membranes, and also during the recovery period to electrically stimulate the nerve fibers and apply negative pressure to them. The patient will spend the first few weeks in an induced coma.

In 2015, Russian programmer Valery Spiridonov, paralyzed as a result of a neurodegenerative disease - spinal muscular atrophy, agreed to have his head transplanted. In early January 2016, the director of the Vietnamese-German Hospital in Hanoi, Trinh Hong Son, offered to perform the transplant at his institution, and the option of performing the operation in the UK was also considered.

It has now become known that the operation will be carried out in China in the next 10 months. It will be conducted by Sergio Canavero and Xiaoping Ren from Harbin Medical University. Sergio Canavero also said that the first patient will not be Valery Spiridonov, but a citizen of the People's Republic of China, but at the moment there are several applicants for this operation and the final choice has not yet been made.

Last year, the HEAVEN/GEMINI collaboration reported on the success of experiments to restore the functions of damaged spinal cords in animals. As proof of success, the authors published videos of mice, rats and dogs at various stages of recovery. In addition, monkey head surgeons, and recently Sergio Canavero and Xiaoping Ren, transplanted the head of one rat to the body and head of another, using a third as an auxiliary circulatory system for the transplant.

It is worth noting that the scientific community has an ambivalent attitude towards the experiments of Sergio Canavero. Some experts refuse to comment on the publications of the Italian neurosurgeon, while others criticize obvious gaps and weaknesses in the description of the experiments, which does not allow assessing the credibility of the work done.

For example, neuroscientist Jerry Silver pointed out that the dog publication did not contain tomographic or histological evidence that the animal's spinal cord was crossed by the claimed 90 percent. Silver also called the data on the experiment using PEG-GNRs extremely scarce: “There is no need to report that four out of five animals drowned. We need to start over and increase the group sizes.” You can read more about this in the note N+1.

Transplantology is a science that is now advancing by leaps and bounds. Experiments related to organ transplants and the cultivation of their artificial analogues cost enormous amounts of money and require years of preparation, but at the same time they are becoming increasingly common. However, the statement of the Italian surgeon puzzled even experienced specialists: Sergio Canavero plans to perform a head transplant from one person to another in the next couple of years and has already found a volunteer for his daring experiment.

Scientific background

Until today, nothing like this operation has ever been carried out. And although more than a million people in the world have undergone transplantation of certain organs, no one has yet dared to connect such complex systems as the human head and body. Attempts have been made to carry out similar operations on animals, and this happened quite a long time ago. In the 1950s, Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov achieved that a dog lived for several days with two heads: its own and a transplanted one.

Demikhov's two-headed dog

In 1970, in Cleveland, Robert J. White cut off the head of one monkey and sewed it on to another. And although the sewn head came to life, opened its eyes and tried to bite, the sewn creature managed to survive no more than a couple of days: the immune system began to reject the foreign body. The public greeted the experiment quite harshly, but White argued that such an operation could be successfully performed even on humans and tried to advance his theory. In 1982, Professor D. Krieger performed a partial brain transplant in mice, as a result of which seven out of eight experimental subjects were able to continue normal life. In 2002, the Japanese conducted experiments on complete head transplants in rats, and in 2014 the Germans proved that a brain divided by the spinal column can be connected so that over time the motor activity of the individual is completely restored.

Who and when?

Despite the vagueness of the results of his predecessors, Sergio Canavero is determined. He plans to perform a human head transplant operation as early as 2017. His position is active: he makes many presentations, where he clearly and clearly explains why and under what conditions such an operation can take place and even claim to be successful. His calculations do not seem realistic to everyone, but they inspire many people.

Among them is our compatriot Valery Spiridonov, who decided to put his own head at the disposal of the scientist. Valery lives in Vladimir and works as a programmer. He decided to take such a step because he suffers from an incurable illness: since childhood, he has been susceptible to muscle atrophy caused by the destruction of spinal cord neurons. Werdnig-Hoffman disease is incurable, moreover, those suffering from it rarely live past 20 years. Valery clearly feels irreversible deterioration and hopes that he will live to see the operation, which will give him hope for continuing his life. Those close to him fully and completely support his decision.

Valery Spiridonov - candidate for head transplant

But Valery is not the only candidate for participation in the experiment: there were enough people all over the world who wanted to take on this role. Canavero had already decided that the priority group would be patients with spinal muscular atrophy. Valery Spiridonov and Sergio Canavero have been corresponding for two years, discussing details and risks. Valery is also invited to the United States for a congress of neurosurgeons, where the Italian will present a detailed plan for his risky undertaking.

Why not?

Sergio Canavero is a high-class neurosurgeon; he managed to perform a successful operation, which resulted in the restoration of motor functions in a person with serious spinal cord damage. He managed to fuse neurons, which no one could do before.

And now he is quite optimistic. While he is looking for funds for his high-profile experiment.

To carry out the operation, it will take more than 11 million dollars, a staff of 100 highly qualified surgeons and other medical personnel. Body donors are expected to be patients with fatal head injuries or those sentenced to death.

The operation promises to last more than 36 hours, and its main stage will be the process of separating the head and attaching it to a new body. This involves cooling human tissue to 15°C and “gluing” the two parts of the spinal cord together using polyethylene glycol. Vessels, muscles, nerve tissues will be stitched, the spine will be secured. The patient will be placed in an artificial coma for a month, and during this time the spinal cord will be stimulated with special electrodes. After regaining consciousness, initially he will only feel his face, but the surgeon promises that within a year he will be taught to move.

Critics and skeptics

Sergio’s colleagues are skeptical; they claim that there is not yet a sufficiently serious theoretical and experimental basis for such an operation, and they call their colleague a “media character.” So the Italian scientist has already received diametrically opposed assessments: from an adventurer and a charlatan to a harbinger of the medicine of the future.

Sergio Canavero - author of a revolutionary idea

A number of experts believe that, provided that a huge variety of all possible risks, details and nuances are taken into account, this operation can be considered technically feasible. Among the main difficulties are the very possibility of restoring the spinal cord, as well as graft-versus-host syndrome, which is expressed in the rejection of the organ by the immune system.

However, many scientists say that they are more “for” than “against”, because even in case of failure, such a project will expand the boundaries of such fields as transplantology, immunology, physiology, etc., and will also raise many questions and will outline ways to solve them.

The Italian’s opponents are not only among scientists: some are alarmed by the ethical component of the experiment. The attempt to play God is condemned not only by adherents of the Catholic religion, but also by ordinary citizens who consider such experiences to be an abuse of human authority on this earth. It was not for nothing that J. White was under police protection with his family for several years and, as a result, under pressure from the public, he completely covered up his experiments.

Canavero says that he will not go against the wishes of society and in the event of mass protests he will refuse to carry out the operation.

These are the general features of the upcoming experiment, and you can judge for yourself how desirable and plausible it is. And in conclusion, we invite you to watch a video report about an unprecedented operation and at the same time admire the hero himself and his interesting presentation about the spinal cord... on bananas.

Sensation: head transplant (video)

Expert: “This is very nice PR!”

Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero performed a human head transplant in China. According to him - successful. Meanwhile, the public is perplexed, because we are talking about a head transplant to a corpse. Why transplant a head into a corpse?

Canavero became famous in Russia after programmer Valery Spiridonov, suffering from a serious illness,...

Now Canavero has refused this operation. According to Spiridonov, the surgeon received funding specifically in China and specifically for a certain type of experiment...

Russian doctors called the current news about a “successful head transplant” a beautiful PR campaign.

From a PR point of view, this is a very smart move, they are pure adventurers,” Dmitry Suslov, head of the laboratory of experimental surgery of the Pavlov State Medical University of St. Petersburg, told MK. “In fact, the operation that Canavero performed was a training presented as a world sensation.

The expert said that similar training operations are carried out by all transplant surgeries in any country in the world that can boast of success in this most complex field of medicine. Moreover, it is mainly young doctors who practice on corpses, who are still afraid to let near a living body.

“We can’t talk about any success here,” Suslov noted. “They took a dead head and sewed it to a dead body.” The only thing we can talk about here is that they worked accurately and sewed it in a purely technically competent manner.

Russian doctors also do not dare talk about any discoveries during the operation. Most of the actions that are needed to sew a head to a body should be perfected to the point of automaticity by any self-respecting surgeon. Every doctor who performs operations on the heart and blood vessels should do the vascular suture practically with his eyes closed. Sutures on large nerves are for neurosurgeons.

As for the past “merits” of the Canavero team, which was also noisily discussed by the whole world - transplanting a head to a monkey, here the doctors also just shake their heads skeptically. According to them, maintaining life in the severed head of an animal is an experiment from the beginning of the last century. The then researchers in white coats were very good at such manipulations.

However, our transplantology still left a small chance of victory in the future for foreign adventurers. Theoretically, it is possible to transplant a head to a living person. And there is even a chance that after the operation both the head and the rest of the body will function normally. But to do this, you will have to make a real scientific breakthrough - learn how to fuse spinal cord neurons.

If someone manages to do this, this will be a Nobel Prize, says Suslov. A huge number of people with spinal injuries will have a chance to get back on their feet and live a full life. But so far such experiments have only been carried out on rats. And at the moment we have only a partial understanding of how this should be done.

When Dr. Canavero announced his grandiose project two years ago, the news shocked the scientific world and, of course, the project was criticized. Despite the skepticism of many scientists and surgeons, the Heaven project attracted the interest of thousands and thousands of physicians who wrote to the Italian scientist.

The first human head transplant will take place in China. The team of specialists will be led by Chinese doctor Ren Xiaoping, assisted by Sergio Canavero. Since the project will be funded by the Chinese government, the patient will be a Chinese citizen, and not Russian Valery Spiridonov, as previously planned.

Sputnik Italia learned from Sergio Canavero what results were achieved within the framework of this fascinating, but ethically ambiguous project:

- Please tell us at what stage the Heaven project is?

“In September, we published our first “proof of principle” studies in Korea, conducted in collaboration with Rice University in Texas. Research has shown that mice whose spinal cords were cut, as is done in a head transplant, regained the ability to walk. These operations use an improved version of polyethylene glycol (PEG), so that 24 hours after surgery, nerve impulses begin to pass through the incision site again. A dog whose spinal cord was cut and repaired with PEG was able to run again 3 weeks after surgery.

These were early studies, and critics said we didn't have enough statistics. We were told that nerve impulses pass (through the incision site), but we had to prove that nerve fibers reappear at the incision site. In January, we published the first work that used a method for studying tissues and cells called immunohistochemistry. Using this method, we have proven that nerve fibers grow at the site of the incision.

-And what were the next steps?

To obtain sufficient statistical data, we used large rats for further research. The technique used was diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which allows you to see the fibers without the need to kill the animals. The rats were divided into two groups: the first group received placebo during surgery, and the second group received PEG. A month later, the rats from the second group could move, but the rats from the first group could not. Later we conducted the same experiment on dogs, and the result was similar. That is, we can now say that mice, rats and dogs with a severed spinal cord can regain the ability to move.

- And the first country in the world where surgery will be performed on a person will be China?

— Yes, the Chinese government wants a Chinese specialist to lead the transplant team of doctors. Therefore, in April we announced that, according to the law of the country, I would assist the Chinese neurosurgeon Xiaoping Ren and his team. It won't be long now, and in October you will learn sensational news.

Why can’t the first person be the Russian Valery Spiridonov, who was the first to offer himself for your operation?

— Here you touched on the main essence of my appeal to Russia. I want to emphasize that in Russia there are surgeons capable of performing such an operation, there is a specially equipped hospital, and there is the necessary money. But at the same time, when representatives of very wealthy Russians, billionaires, contacted me, they emphasized their interest in investing in my project, but not in charity. So now I have lost hope of convincing Russian investors to help me find a donor for a transplant that will save Valery Spiridonov. And I appeal to the Russians: Valery, a Russian citizen, will only be saved by an operation in Russia. China, naturally, will save the Chinese, besides Valery is a representative of the white race, and he cannot be transplanted with the body of a Chinese so as not to cause negative psychological reactions.

I officially appeal to the Russian authorities and the Russian people to help me save the Russian citizen Valery Spiridonov. I am ready to assist a team of Russian surgeons during an operation in Moscow. If the authorities are unwilling to intervene, there is another option - crowdfunding. I ask 145 million Russian citizens for financial assistance. There is no other way to save Valery. I ask the Russian people to help save my compatriot. Let Russia, where the great neurosurgeon Surgeon Demikhov began his operations on animal head transplants in the last century, carry out this operation and begin a new era."