Since this Friday morning, various international media have echoed the announcement of the Italian neuroscientist Sergio Canavero, who came out to confirm to the four winds that he had accomplished the first operation in the world to transplant a head from one human body to another. The detail is that both bodies were already corpses.
Sergio Canavero is today one of those personalities who have risen to fame thanks to his controversial statements. It is only enough to return to February 2015 to return to his words, where he flatly stated that the first human head transplant would arrive in 2017. In April of this 2017, Canavero returned to the scene, assuring that he already had everything ready to carry out the procedure, which would arrive before the end of the year. Today the transplant has been carried out, but not as we expected.
When the concept of “successful” is not what we had in mind
Here it should be noted that Canavero is currently the only person, at least who has come to light, who is working on head transplants. According to the scientist, his tests have been carried out on animals with procedures without many details, which he has called “successful”.
To this day, Canavero says he has carried out two tests: one with monkeys and the other with mice. In the case of the monkey, and the words of Canavero, the monkey survived the transplant and died after 20 hours but never regained consciousness. This is because no attempt was made to connect the spinal cord for “ethical reasons.” However, the neuroscientist considers it a “successful transplant”, this despite the lack of consciousness and his life of fewer than 24 hours.
The second case consisted of transplanting a head graft from one rat to another, yes, a graft that Canavero wants to sell us as a “successful” head transplant.
The most outstanding point is that the procedure, the studies, and even the results are unknown; everything is based on the scientist’s word and the “papers” that his team has published. Of course, all this has raised a strong controversy in scientific circles, where Canavero is already labeled a “charlatan”.
For this new procedure that is announced to us as “the first human head transplant in history,” things are not very different. Up to now, there is no published paper, and there are no details or results; we only know that it has been ” successful”. The only thing known is that a human head (from a corpse) was placed in the body of another (dead) person, nothing more.
Despite this, Canavero continues in his role and ensures that the next step is a “complete exchange of heads between brain-dead organ donors”, and even advanced what a “transplant” would be like:
“The recipient and donor will be placed in a sitting position to facilitate what is expected to be more than 24 hours of detailed and bloody work to separate and then reconnect vertebral bones, jugular veins, trachea, esophagus, and other neck structures. The recipient will be assisted in breathing, and blood will be pumped into the body with external devices. The recipient patient will be in a drug-induced coma for an unspecified recovery.”
Now we can only wait.
Sharlene Meriel is an avid gamer with a knack for technology. He has been writing about the latest technologies for the past 5 years. His contribution in technology journalism has been noteworthy. He is also a day trader with interest in the Forex market.
