While the procedure itself is clearly outlandish, is it that difficult to imagine a patient that died from brain-related complications (leaving the rest of their body in otherwise good shape)?
Key quote
"The cost... is estimated at over $10 million, ... the doctor has failed to secure funding for the surgery itself and for the staff of 150 doctors and nurses"
What if it turns out that the brain is only a user interface and hardware abstraction layer to the body, with "you" actually being a colony of microbes living in the body (mainly the gut)?
This comment summarizes my opinion on this subject: "The doctor can easily prove his technique works by transplanting the heads of two rats, preferably a white and brown one. If they survive and could walk around, not only will he get all the funding he wants, but the Nobel Prize in Medicine."
In 2002, other head transplants were also conducted in Japan in rats. Unlike the head transplants performed by Dr. White, however, these head transplants involved grafting one rat's head onto the body of another rat that kept its head. Thus, the rat ended up with two heads.[10]
As it stands, there's a simple answer: The brain. The person is defined by having a specific brain; you can swap out literally everything else and the person will still be the same person.
This will be more relevant when pieces of the brain are being swapped out.
Though I find it hard to relate to, many people consider their bodies to be essential to their identity — they wouldn't be them without it. These people find our intuition about what is essential similarly foreign.
Some people have body dysmorphia issues, and some people just really identify with looking a specific way. I understand that. However, some people really identify with living in a specific location, too, but we don't usually regard moving day as the death date of the person who moved.
To be fair, AFAIK we don't really know how much the rest of the nervous system is "attuned" to being connected to a specific brain and vice versa. That is, even if the brainstem could be 100% connected to the spinal cord, we don't know how hard it would be to adapt to the new body. Could it result in something resembling the alien hand syndrome [1] or body integrity identity disorder [2], for instance?
OK, that's a bit facetious. A combination of existing transplantation procedures (heart? check. liver? check. kidneys? check...) and the fact that sometimes people need things removed but not replaced (thyroid, for example) leaves nothing but the brain as the organ which can't be removed and/or replaced without changing who the person is.
There's quite a big gap between "some bits have been removed or replaced" and "the brain is the only bit that can't be replaced" without changing who the person is.
The nervous system (of which the brain is but a part) is quite a large and complex thing, and there is no guarantee that one's conscious being is tied to that set of neurons in one's head and not, for example, to the extended set below the neck. There's evidence that certain functions are performed mostly or wholly within the brain, but no evidence of consciousness, which is what I think you mean by "changing who the person is".
Heart? Liver? Kidneys? Thyroid and appendix and gallbladders? They ain't got nothin' on the nervous system when it comes to me.
well, I don't really think this is the case, not for metaphysical reason or such, but because glands and the chemicals they produce have a high impact on how the brain functions
I'd argue that the completely different chemical balance the brain will be subject to will cause dramatic behavioral swings, even if the patient memory and skills might be maintained (well, not the motor skill, I guess)
If the procedure is 100% lethal in theory, it's doctor-assisted suicide, which is legal in some jurisdictions (in America) and illegal in others.
If the procedure is 100% lethal in practice, but survivable in theory, it's medical research, and if good, non-coerced informed consent is given, I have a very hard time seeing any prosecutor prosecuting the case as even manslaughter or similar.
After all, there are other procedures which are only performed when there's a small hope of success; CPR out in the field is one of them. (High-end survival estimate is less than 20%, more likely less than 10%.)
Another comparison would be bone marrow transplants, which can have a survival rate of 15-20% in some cases… but it's still better than not doing anything.
Medical science has, however this Doctor is just making an outlandish claim. There have been no tests on animals that worked and he's just hoping his method of joining the spinal cords will work.
This isn't medicine, this is just someone with a superiority complex.
The assumption of the doctor is that all nerves in the spines of two organisms are organized in exactly the same way. IANAMD, but this seems a bold assumption.
Certainly IANAMDAW but cases with people who have suffered from paralysis have shown that the brain has the capacity to rewire things through physical rehabilitation exercises, so maybe it is possible.
doesn't it just replace it with another (nearly) hopeless condition? success presumably means total quadriplegia - and this exacerbated most likely by 'total body rejection' - or maybe even 'head rejection' depending on who is in control!
I'd suggest focusing on reattaching people's own severed spinal chords, to perfect the procedure before doing something as risky and speculative as a whole head transplant. If he can demonstrate that he can reliably reconnect all the correct nerves in one person's spinal chord, it would be a major breakthrough for millions of patients with spinal chord injuries, and then we can begin talking about connecting other people's, which I assume have different "pin-outs".
Fixing a broken spinal chord is probably rather more difficult (based on my extensive and indepth knowledge of the subject [ * ]), as there's likely to be a substantial section of damaged chord --- crushed, for example. A clean cut through an undamaged chord would provide two relatively undamaged surfaces. I have heard of work in regenerating severed spinal chords in rats.
I'd be more inclined to be worried about whether the neurons on one side can usefully bind to the neurons on the other. AFAIK the nerve mapping in the spinal chord is more or less random. The rat experiment wouldn't test this, of course.
[ * ] Disclaimer: while I have in-depth and extensive knowledge of some subjects, this is not one of them.
That makes sense, but as you say, the clean cut might not help the mapping problem. Even if you can somehow figure out which ones belong where that must be some very challenging microsurgery.
Maybe it would be possible to make a electronic, prosthetic section of spine that can be reconfigured on the fly, a bit like an FPGA, that might be useful for both injuries (where a damaged section needs to be replaced) and clean cuts with unknown mapping. Unfortunately these kinds of brain-computer interfaces seem prone to scarring, weakening the signal over time.
It's probably easier to just let them hook up randomly and then stimulate the brain into relearning the mappings. Infants do this as a matter of course (that's what a lot of the random flailing babies do is for). An adult brain may need a substantial amount of chemical help, though.
More on Dr. Hunt Batjer's opinion of the operation:
> The problem is, fusing a head with a separate body (including spinal cord, jugular vein etc) could result in a hitherto never experienced level and quality of insanity.[1]
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 86.9 ms ] threadLOL
Key quote "The cost... is estimated at over $10 million, ... the doctor has failed to secure funding for the surgery itself and for the staff of 150 doctors and nurses"
What if it turns out that the brain is only a user interface and hardware abstraction layer to the body, with "you" actually being a colony of microbes living in the body (mainly the gut)?
I believe heart transplants were first attempted on sheep (wikipedia failed me on this one)
In 2002, other head transplants were also conducted in Japan in rats. Unlike the head transplants performed by Dr. White, however, these head transplants involved grafting one rat's head onto the body of another rat that kept its head. Thus, the rat ended up with two heads.[10]
If you look at the history of head transplants (yes a gruesome area), they ALL end badly for the subject.
This will be more relevant when pieces of the brain are being swapped out.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_integrity_identity_disorde...
OK, that's a bit facetious. A combination of existing transplantation procedures (heart? check. liver? check. kidneys? check...) and the fact that sometimes people need things removed but not replaced (thyroid, for example) leaves nothing but the brain as the organ which can't be removed and/or replaced without changing who the person is.
The nervous system (of which the brain is but a part) is quite a large and complex thing, and there is no guarantee that one's conscious being is tied to that set of neurons in one's head and not, for example, to the extended set below the neck. There's evidence that certain functions are performed mostly or wholly within the brain, but no evidence of consciousness, which is what I think you mean by "changing who the person is".
Heart? Liver? Kidneys? Thyroid and appendix and gallbladders? They ain't got nothin' on the nervous system when it comes to me.
http://www.jabfm.org/content/23/5/677.full
I'd argue that the completely different chemical balance the brain will be subject to will cause dramatic behavioral swings, even if the patient memory and skills might be maintained (well, not the motor skill, I guess)
I mean it is murder even if both parties agrees right? What is different in this case
If the procedure is 100% lethal in practice, but survivable in theory, it's medical research, and if good, non-coerced informed consent is given, I have a very hard time seeing any prosecutor prosecuting the case as even manslaughter or similar.
After all, there are other procedures which are only performed when there's a small hope of success; CPR out in the field is one of them. (High-end survival estimate is less than 20%, more likely less than 10%.)
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/10/health/cpr-lifesaving-stats/
http://apps.health.qld.gov.au/acp/Public_Section/Resuscitati...
This isn't medicine, this is just someone with a superiority complex.
Seems like a waste of a bunch of organs that could change many people's lives...
I would say if not when (nitpicky)
Many people's initial reaction is disgust. Which i don't blame them for. But what if we can move past this? It might be a great medical advancement.
I'd be more inclined to be worried about whether the neurons on one side can usefully bind to the neurons on the other. AFAIK the nerve mapping in the spinal chord is more or less random. The rat experiment wouldn't test this, of course.
[ * ] Disclaimer: while I have in-depth and extensive knowledge of some subjects, this is not one of them.
Maybe it would be possible to make a electronic, prosthetic section of spine that can be reconfigured on the fly, a bit like an FPGA, that might be useful for both injuries (where a damaged section needs to be replaced) and clean cuts with unknown mapping. Unfortunately these kinds of brain-computer interfaces seem prone to scarring, weakening the signal over time.
Ah, here's a short article on the work with rats: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/new-drug-boosts-nerve-regrow...
> The problem is, fusing a head with a separate body (including spinal cord, jugular vein etc) could result in a hitherto never experienced level and quality of insanity.[1]
[1]: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/man-undergoing-hea...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmGm_VVklvo