Sergio Kanavero announced successful "rehearsal" of human head transplantation

Sergio Canavero. Source: Lisi Niesner / EPA

The Italian surgeon Sergio Kanavero has not been heard since the (partial) head of the rat was transplanted. News has been published quite a bit over time. But the other day, Kanavero said that the first successful human head transplant had been performed in China. Many media outlets have released a description of the transaction under these headings But in fact, this is a transplant of the head of a corpse on a dead body. This operation is declared as a “rehearsal” of transplantation of a conditionally living head onto a conditionally living body.

Kanavero said that the operation was carried out by a team of Chinese surgeons led by Ren Xiaoping, who in 2016 conducted a similar job with the body and the head of a monkey. Then it was not entirely clear what had happened. Scientists have announced a monkey head transplant. The compound being (body + head) had to be put to sleep after 20 hours for some “ethical reasons”. The operation itself was declared conditionally successful. Now, a transplant of a head of a corpse is described in much the same way. Kanavero argues that the Chinese managed to transplant their heads, connecting the nerve endings and blood vessels, even if they were dead. The Italian claims that the operation went as planned.

For an ordinary person, this news looks plausible. Indeed, after all, doctors have already learned how to transplant many organs, including the heart. And not only the heart. Successful transplants of the face, penis, uterus and even hands are known (it’s about transplantation, not stitching your own limbs to the body - doctors learned to do this a long time ago).
')
But what about the head? Here everything is much more complicated. The fact is that doctors have never performed an operation to restore a fully separated (cut or divided due to injury) human spinal cord. We are talking about the need to connect millions of nerve endings, which is much more difficult than “stitching” a new heart (although this operation is very complicated). Organ transplantation requires the connection of a much smaller number of nerve endings or blood vessels than in the case of a head transplant. Only in 2017, doctors have learned to transplant hands from one person to another so that they can function normally (not completely, but at least partially).

The same Kanavero previously declared successful “gluing” of the spinal cord of mice. But even this was questioned by a number of neurosurgeons. The scientists who carried out this operation did not provide a number of details in the description of their experiments.

And here we are talking about mice , about restoring the intentionally damaged spinal cord. With regard to human and head transplantation, everything is more complicated. The fact is that our brain is a very delicate organ, which is irreversibly damaged in the absence of oxygen supply / nutrition. A few minutes of blood supply to the head and everything - irreversible dysfunction of the brain functions appear. Perhaps a cardinal dysfunction can be avoided by cooling the head during transplantation. But this is only an assumption, research on this topic has not yet been conducted.

A heart cooled in a special way can last for a long time and can be transplanted. But the brain? That is unlikely. Many experts in the brain believe that even if this organ is cooled and theoretically successfully transplanted, it cannot work normally.

Even if it succeeds, there is no guarantee that the happy owner of a new body will not have the desire to get rid of it. For example, somehow a patient who has received a freshly stitched penis, soon decided to get rid of him. The reason is purely psychological . Similar problems without such a radical solution were also observed in patients who received a new face. But the reasoning about psychology is here for the sake of a word of wit, because the success of a transplant even a corpse's head is a big question.

In the annals of medicine there is information about the successful recovery of significant spinal cord injuries. But it says about solving a problem with trauma in a small child, whose nervous system is still being formed, and not in an adult. The operation to connect the spinal cord of the donor and the acceptor so far looks pure fantasy.

What really happened?

In fact, a “successful” transplant is a transplant of a head of a corpse on a body of the same corpse. Yes, of course, operations on dead bodies are the most important aspect of training surgeons. Before you begin a transplant of a heart or other organs, experts trained for many months. Here, in fact, you can say that "the path to success is covered with corpses." And there is no negative implication here.

But there is one problem. If the same heart transplantation, which is much inferior in complexity to a head transplant operation, required training on dozens of dead bodies, then what can we say about the head transplantation itself? Hundreds of training operations are likely to be required here before you can get down to real work. But Kanavero argues that the current operation is something like an introduction to an operation on a living person (more precisely, two conventionally living people). And at the moment she is the only one.

It cannot be called successful, since the operation can be considered as such only after it was performed with a live patient who remained alive and capable after the work of a surgeon. “Perhaps this procedure showed the possibility of successful connection of nerves and blood vessels, but the operation itself did not become successful because it requires a result in the form of a living and functioning organism,” said Dean Burnett, a neurosurgeon.

“We are still far from the goal. You can connect the two halves of cars into one whole and call it successful work, but after trying to start the car, the system will ignite or simply stop working. ”

Barnett says that Kanavero talked many times about successful operations that other surgeons do not consider as such.

“I do not understand why he is so sure. Yes, and no one seems to know. He did not publish anything. About his „successful“ transplantation it became known long before the publication of the results in the form of a scientific article, ”said Burnett. The scientist says that parts of the human body can not be added or removed, just as it happens with Lego figures. There are so many problems when connecting the head and body, even if they belong to the same person.


Scientific articles describing the operations performed? Why are they. Enough and publications in the tabloids

The problem is that Kanavero says more than he writes. A real scientist should fix his success with a long series of publications, where he describes in detail how the operation took place, what successful and unsuccessful moments can be distinguished. Instead, Kanavero gives numerous interviews about success. Of course, he needs the attention of society, but the problem is that scientists cannot be persuaded by the usual “HYIP”, something more serious than just statements is required.

What's next?

After publishing in a number of media outlets with statements about his “success”, Kanavero began to promise that an operation with a conditionally living patient would soon take place. This is a person in a vegetative state. At the same time, Kanavero claims that there are already “volunteers”. While the truth is unclear, how people in a coma could inform the Italian about their consent to participate in medical experiments.

Now talk about conducting an operation with a patient who is conscious (without anesthesia) has somewhat subsided.

Valery Spiridonov, a Russian programmer, recently said that his participation in a head transplant operation is a very big question. The preparation of the operation is actually frozen. The problem, according to Spiridonov, is that Kanavero receives funding from the Chinese government, which plans to carry out the first operation with a citizen of his own country. The Chinese, in particular, provided the surgeon with their own laboratory at a local clinic. Well, since Russia does not give the scientist any means, Kanavero agreed to the conditions of the Chinese.

“As for my own operation, I have a large number of personal plans, personal affairs. While Dr. Kanavero is engaged in experiments, I am working on my health, my future. I do not do all the bets on him, I do what I like. But I strongly support him and I believe that this technology should be developed as a logical continuation of transplantology, ” Spiridonov told RIA Novosti.

The fact that Spiridonov became the first and main candidate for a head transplant became known in 2015 .