Human head transplants may be possible this century, neuroscientist says

Sometimes a headline says it all. The article says this technology is not far off, although it would be expensive.

The separation of head and body would have to occur on two humans simultaneously, Canavero writes… The procedure, Canavero writes, would have to take place within an hour… He adds that the surgery would take a team of 100 surgeons roughly 36 hours to complete, at an estimated cost of £8.5-million ($128-million).[*]

“The problem” of this surgery, Canavero told ABCNews.com, “is not really technical but is completely ethical.”

It’s hard to imagine any situation where this would be ethical. To have a donor, someone would have to die in a way that leaves their otherwise healthy body completely intact, except for the head. Grafting heads onto executed prisoners might solve the ethical problem for some, but not for me. All I can think of is if we could grow human bodies with no brain at all, or all but the most primitive part of the nervous system that keeps basic organs functioning. Even that sounds ethically dubious. But you figure, if there is a black market for individual organs now, some dying rich person somewhere will try this eventually whether it is ethical or not. I wonder, if we somehow solved all non-brain-related diseases like heart disease and cancer, and we perfected the technology of cloning brainless bodies in some ethical way, how long could we live? How long could the brain actually last, considering that we hear constantly that we start losing brain function as early as our 30s?

I can’t help thinking of the awful 1991 movie Body Parts, in which this sort of thing doesn’t turn out well, and that was just an arm!

* yes if the operation cost 8.5 million British pounds, it should be 12.8 million US dollars above, not 128 million. Either that, or they meant 85 million pounds. It doesn’t really change the point of the article.