- A leading brain surgeon has unveiled plans to perform
the first human head transplant. The operation, already carried out successfully
on dogs and monkeys, would initially cost £800,000.
-
- Among those who could benefit are quadriplegics with
conditions similar to that of Christopher Reeve, the Superman actor paralysed
after a fall from a horse. The operation may also appeal to rich people
with terminal illnesses.
-
- The technique for transplanting heads was proven in principle
with small mammals in the early 1990s. However, it was abandoned when scientists
realised that the extra time needed to reconnect larger human arteries
and muscles would deprive the brain of oxygen and cause tissue damage.
-
- Last week it was claimed that this obstacle has finally
been overcome. Robert J White, an American neurosurgeon, said he had developed
a blood-cooling system that meant a living head could be disconnected from
its blood supply for up to an hour without ill-effect.
-
- White and his team, based at Case Western Reserve University
in Ohio, claim they have already practised the techniques on corpses retained
for medical research at the American hospital where he works.
-
- The White machine cools the brain from 37C to 10C. "This
slows the metabolism and allows plenty of time to reconnect a head to its
new body. All we are waiting for now is the money and the patients,"
White said last week.
-
- White has carried out more than 10,000 brain operations
on humans. His work on monkeys, which started over 20 years ago, culminated
in the full head transplants.
-
- The animals survived for more than a week with no impairment
of mental faculties before they were put down, for humane reasons.
-
- Head or brain transplants have long been seen as the
holy grail for neurosurgery. In theory, they offer the nearest anyone could
get to immortality.
-
- In reality, however, White's technique would initially
have a more limited application. Despite many recent advances, surgeons
still cannot reconnect or regrow severed spinal nerves. This means that,
like the monkeys, anyone who underwent a head transplant would be paralysed
from the neck down.
-
- It also means that the first candidates for such surgery
would probably be people, like Reeve, who had already been paralysed. Quadriplegics
often die prematurely from multiple organ failure. Transplanting their
head to a new body could, however, give them the chance of a normal lifespan.
-
- White believes that, although the idea might shock the
able-bodied, many quadriplegics would welcome it. "It would be hard
to deny them that chance through squeamishness when we are already transplanting
lungs, hearts and livers," he said.
-
- Most of the subsequent demand for head transplants would,
however, almost certainly come from a group presenting far greater ethical
problems - elderly or dying millionaires with enough money to pay for the
operation and the years of aftercare.
-
- The operational procedure, described by White in a paper
published last week, would involve two teams of surgeons. Deep incisions
would be made around the necks to expose the six major blood vessels and
the spine. The next step would be to cool the head by connecting it to
White's new cerebral perfusion machine. Initially this would carry blood
from the original body but, as the operation progressed, a second set of
tubes from the machine would be hooked up to blood vessels of the recipient
body.
-
- Then, taps would switch off the head's blood supply from
the original body and replace it with blood from the new body.
-
- At this point the head would be detached, by severing
the spinal cord, and then attached to the new body. Such procedures could
mean halting the blood supply but the brain's low temperature would minimise
the risk of damage. Then the blood vessels, muscles and skin could be sewn
together using standard surgical techniques.
-
- Reeve, who has set up a foundation to promote research
into the causes of paralysis and potential cures, is understood to have
taken a close interest in White's research.
-
- White refused to reveal his future clients but was confident
many would come forward. He said: "The Frankenstein legend, where
a human being is constructed by sewing parts together, will become a reality
early in the 21st century."
-
|
