From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sun Aug 29 1999 - 19:21:02 MDT
I'm not vouching for the accuracy of this . . . .
>From The Sunday Times,
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/99/08/29/stinwenws03005.html?99
9
-
August 29 1999 BRITAIN
©
Head transplants give paralysed new hope
Jonathan Leake
Science Editor
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."
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:04:56 MST