The surgeon, who wants to make the world's first head transplant, announced a new breakthrough

As early as 2015, the world's media began to wonder when the first ever human head transplantation would be carried out. This is a rather strange question, and it is not easy to answer.

The concept of Dr. Canavero

Even 2 years after the beginning of these conversations, such an operation, as you understand, is still not available in your local hospital. Sergio Canavero - the neurophysiologist, who first announced his plans to carry it out - fell under the barrage of criticism and condemnation. Nevertheless, thanks to a completely new study, he was one step closer to becoming the first surgeon who could conduct these unusual transplants.

The concept of Dr. Canavere is relatively simple. You fell into a terrible accident and remained paralyzed below the neck? Or do you suffer from an exhausting and incurable genetic condition that will not allow you to walk or even breathe? No problem: just find yourself another body using the procedure of head transplantation.

A new surge in surgeons

This idea of Canavero is at least very ambitious, because even the best doctors now can not completely restore the spinal cord to give paralyzed people the opportunity to walk again. Nevertheless, a new article by Canavero in the journal CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics claims that he was able to achieve his goal - at least for a while - and conducted a similar operation in rats.

The surgical team led by Xiaoping Rhen from Harbin Medical University in China damaged the spinal cord of 15 rats, and then tried to save nine of them, leaving the rest as a control group. Using polyethylene glycol, a compound that is used both in industrial processes and in medicine, surgeons have tried to repair interrupted compounds, in parallel with this, treating rats from excessive bleeding.

All the rats, one in number, were able to reschedule the operation and live for at least 30 days after it. They were able to restore the basic functionality of the musculoskeletal system and even started walking. Two rodents were able to rehabilitate themselves to a condition that surgeons called "normal."

This is the first study that shows that paralysis and damage to the spinal cord can be reversed.

What is the complexity of transplantation?

However, surgeons note that the rupture of the spinal cord should be sufficiently smooth and neat to ensure minimal damage. Unfortunately, when it comes to real life, such injuries are rarely such, and it is also necessary to take into account the fact that the human spine is much more complex than the rat.

Nevertheless, surgeons certainly work in this direction. In the next experiment with spinal rupture, dogs will be used, although the ultimate goal is certainly to restore the cut off human spinal cord. If the surgeons manage to do this, they will come close to the operation for a head transplant, although, of course, between these two procedures there is a huge gap in knowledge.

The difficulty is that you can not just cut off a person's head and sew it to another body. And it's not just about damage to the spinal cord. There are other problems. For example, a collision of the immune systems of the head and body can have devastating consequences. Also, there is no evidence that surgeons will be able to connect the nervous systems of the head and body. But there is also the gastrointestinal tract, the system of blood circulation and respiration ...

Back in 2015, Dr. Canavero stated that, in his opinion, after the transplantation, the head and body would have to adapt to each other.

As you can see, in the last test there was not even a decapitation of the rat: the surgeons just damaged her spinal cord. These two completely different operations, in addition, some scientists even doubt the truthfulness of the newest study, since they believe that the spine was not damaged properly.

Will we see the first results?

Given all these facts, one would expect that the preparation for the first transplantation of the human head will take a long time, and maybe even a whole century. But no, the operation is planned for December this year. Initially, the transplant was going to be performed for a Russian guy with a rare disease of motor neurons, but now there is a message that a young man from China will take his place on the operating table. Can you believe that such a transplant is real, and the operation will not turn into a murder? After all, most likely, experiments and training should last more than a few months, which remained with the surgeons ...