Quote from: Princess of Hearts on September 06, 2011, 04:44:10 PM
Do you think 100+ years from now that science will be able to transfer heads from one body to another?   In the future perhaps an ftm and an mtf could arrange to swap bodies?

Well, it seems that a doctor is already going to try to do a head transplant in 2017: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/doctor-aims-perform-head-transplant-2017-experts-remain/story?id=33775323

There's a lot of skepticism though... Here's the full story:

Quote

A team of researchers led by an Italian surgeon say they are planning to perform the first human head transplant in 2017 and have even recruited a volunteer, but experts remain skeptical of the experimental procedure.

Dr. Sergio Canavero, director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, Turin, Italy, has proposed in two published medical articles that a head transplant is possible, thanks to new technology.

The technology allows for the body to be cooled during surgery and there are new tools that create a cleaner cut on the spinal cord and machines that allow people to be on bypass during surgery.

The team wants to go through with the procedure in December 2017, according to new reports on AFP and Central European News. One surgeon reportedly involved in the procedure, Dr. Ren Xiaoping, said the team will go through with the surgery only if future research supports their plan.

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When contacted by ABC News at the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, a representative said no further information would be released until October.

Russian-born Valery Sprinidov has agreed to be the first patient to undergo the procedure, according to the AFP. Sprinidov reportedly has Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, which causes atrophy of the muscles.

However, experts in the U.S. say they are extremely skeptical that the procedure is feasible and say it would be unethical to perform the procedure when it hasn't been proven in earlier animal studies.

Dr. Thomas Cochrane, a director of neuroethics at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School, said those with experience in the field say it will be nearly impossible for Canavero and his team to create enough evidence in two years that would allow him to ethically go through with the procedure.

"Nobody believes it until he produces x, y and z [in] animals studies in particular," Cochrane told ABC News.

Even if surgeons were able to attach a head to new body and not have the transplant be rejected, it likely wouldn't lead to a better quality of life, Cochrane said.

"And we're not anywhere close to solving the problem of connecting the brain to spinal cord," Cochrane said. "Your only other option is to have a brain-computer interface that controls the body. We're not really close to that either."

Art Caplan, director of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, questioned why the surgeons wanted to attempt such a difficult procedure, pointing out that if they had technology to fuse together spinal cords they could use it on patients paralyzed by spinal cord injuries to help them heal.

"If you do this, you wouldn't start with a head transplant. You'd start with spinal cord repair," Caplan said. "If you can make spinal cord work, you'd go fix them before doing this. ... I think the odds of this happening are slim to none."

Dr. Ren Xiaoping has been testing head transplants in mice, but the mice have not survived past a day, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Michael DeGeorgia, a neurologist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, said without proper study and with Canavero grabbing headlines, he worries the story could overtake the actual science.

"It could take away from real science that is being done in this area," DeGeorgia said of the hype surrounding the procedure. "It's not completely out of the question that some type of head transplant could work [in the future.] It's just that there are so many barriers right now that would need to be overcome in order for the whole project to work."

DeGeorgia said should a head transplant work, it will likely occur in decades not just a few years.

Previously Canavero pointed to a 1970 operation where a surgeon at Case Western Reserve Medical Center transplanted the head of one rhesus monkey to another, as a reason the operation might work. However, that animal survived for 10 days on a ventilator before eventually dying, according to DeGeorgia. He said that the early procedure does not show how it could be successful in humans or even in animals for the long term.

"To try and fuse the tracks and neurological tracts and the axons and nerves in the spinal cord...that is right now, not possible," explained DeGeorgia.

If a doctor is going to be trying it in 2017... Even if he fails I imagine that we'll probably see it in our lifetimes (for those of us that are still young enough to live a few decades longer). I can't possibly imagine he could succeed though. Even if he manages to attach the head the spinal cord would likely not be possible to attach in any usable way due to scar tissue, and then there's the problem of rejection since the donor body is from an entirely different person.

Personally, I'd rather see a brain transplant into a new body, whether that body is biological or synthetic. If it were biological it'd be ideal if it were genetically engineered for the ideal appearance someone wants but completely brain dead and given accelerated growth. Synthetic Ghost in the Shell style bodies would be even more amazing, but that'll surely be in our later years if we see it at all, even for those of us still in our 20's.

The tough nut to crack will be decoding our brain (Molecular science + more) and figuring out what causes us to feel like this (actual differences in the brain not just "possible larger blah blah").

I'm a bit skeptical of the future.

It's 2015 Where is my flying car?

They have transplanted monkeys heads and done other weird experiments on monkeys such as one monkey remotely controller another monkeys body (they are connected to each others brain).  The biggest problem is connecting all of the spinal nerves that the brain uses to transmit and receive signals.

I m a firm believer in technology and the economy.  It will become too unproductive to have peoples knowledge and skills pass away.  I think that our consciousness will be downloaded into some cloned body so that society can continue to benefit fro the accumulated knowledge etc...Of course only useful people like Paris Hilton, Donald Trump or the queen will be allowed to do this...LOL

I would honestly love to be able to pass my thoughts/consciousness into a new female body,  that is my ultimate desire.

Thoughts like this had occurred to me.

They were different though. I was thinking of things like hip replacement and cross-sex genital transplantation. Imagine a young woman killed in a car accident and her parents crushed by not having offspring of their only child. But she signed a consent and her reproductive system is already being preserved for a matching MtF.

Also those of FtMs can be taken.

And vice versa. I would donate what I have down there if there was such option.

Like someone on the thread said, this here is my body. I take care of it and I know it. I wouldn't want to simply do an exchange, for the better or for the worse. I prefer to modify and take care of what I have got. And hey, I might change my mind in the future.

Thankfully I will be dead and gone by then so I won't care but that would be a freaky thought. Perhaps surgery will be easier to get this ugly penis removed to make a beautiful vagina.