First human head transplant planned

April 8, 2015

Drawing depicting the first total cephalosomatic exchange in a monkey (credit: R. J. White et al./Transplant Proc)

The first person to undergo a head-transplant operation will be Valery Spiridinov, The Independent reports. The procedure will be performed by controversial Italian doctor Sergio Canavero, MD.

Canavero hopes to remove Spiridinov’s head (he’s suffering from a wasting or degenerative disease) and transplant it onto the body of someone who is brain-dead but still has a functioning body,

In a 2013 paper in open-access journal Surgical Neurology International, Canavero cited a 1970 experiment by neurologist Robert White, MD, as the first successful primate head transplant.

“White and his colleagues successfully transplanted the head of a rhesus monkey on the body of another one, whose head had simultaneously been removed,” Canavero said. “The monkey lived 8 days and was, by all measures, normal, having suffered no complications.”

However, Case Western Reserve University neurologist Jerry Silver, MD, who witnessed that procedure, told CBS News in 2013 that “it was just awful. I remember that the head would wake up, the facial expressions looked like terrible pain and confusion and anxiety in the animal. The head will stay alive, but not very long. This is bad science, this should never happen.”


Abstract of HEAVEN: The head anastomosis venture Project outline for the first human head transplantation with spinal linkage (GEMINI)

In 1970, the first cephalosomatic linkage was achieved in the monkey. However, the technology did not exist for reconnecting the spinal cord, and this line of research was no longer pursued. In this paper, an outline for the first total cephalic exchange in man is provided and spinal reconnection is described. The use of fusogens, special membrane-fusion substances, is discussed in view of the first human cord linkage. Several human diseases without cure might benefit from the procedure.