Are Head Transplants Possible... and Ethical?

During a cold, dreary summer in Switzerland 200 years ago, English author Mary Shelley sat down to write her novel "Frankenstein." The story -- and subsequent adaptations for the screen -- has gripped our imaginations ever since. While reanimating the dead remains a scientific impossibility, scientists are pushing the boundaries of modern medicine closer and closer to Shelley's vision. As they do, the public's uneasiness about the ethical limits of medicine has been stoked. Take, for example, the announcement last year by Italian neuroscientist Dr. Sergio Canavero that he plans to perform the first human head transplant. Not sometime in the distant future ... but possibly in 2017. And now he has a volunteer for the procedure -- Valery Spiridonov, a 31-year-old Russian man with a degenerative muscle condition. This has bumped Canavero's bold plans from the realm of science fiction straight into the real world. Like Victor Frankenstein, Canavero hopes to make great scientific advances, even if it means working at the fringes of modern medicine. For some critics, though, transplanting a human head onto a new body crosses a line -- one similar to the line that Shelley's fictional doctor stepped over when he created his "creature." Is a head transplant possible? Compared to transplanting a heart or kidney, a head transplant is technically much more challenging. Surgeons will need to join many tissues of the head and new body, including muscles, skin, ligaments, bones, ...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news