Author: Abikenova Ayazhan
Translated by: Yurankyzy Saltanat
Did you know that a head transplant is more real than we imagined? A couple of years ago, this news from China shocked the whole world. There have been many experiments, but no one expected it to be feasible in humans. On November 17, 2017, Sergio Canavero announced in the headlines: "In China, for the first time a head transplant has been successfully performed on a human.".
This discovery was expected in the United States, but far from the PRC, since Sergio himself conducted his research in America. Sergio Canavero is an Italian neurosurgeon, author of the BRAVE (Вrain anastomosis venture) project. His idea was to extend the life of mankind in order to reach immortality. His colleagues in America did not like this idea, in their opinion, even if a transplant is technically possible, there is no guarantee that a person will live, and according to ethical standards, this is impractical. Chinese professor Ren Xiaoping from Harbin Medical University invited him to collaborate and the Chinese government financed the entire project. After listening to Sergio carefully, they got down to work in 2015. The main task of Canavero was to connect the spinal cord to the brain. If it were known about the attachment technique, then the head transplant would have taken place 50 years ago, when Robert White (American neurosurgeon) and Vladimir Demikhov (Russian doctor-scientist) were doing it. But the work of the Italian neurosurgeon was only part of the operation, and the rest fell out to vascular, general surgeons, orthopedists, operating otolaryngologists and other surgeons. Working with the Chinese researchers, the advantage was that they have experience in head transplantation in monkeys without interrupting blood flow and a high level of vascular surgery. As a preparatory step, they decided to transplant the head into a corpse, and the result was successful, which was judged by the restoration of blood circulation. It was this part of the research work that thundered around the world in 2017.
Due to a number of factors, such as ethical standards, the approval process for an experiment on volunteers, funding, head transplantation has not yet been performed on a living person.
According to Sergio's plan, the next stage will be a brain transplant into a living person, after which, as he assures, people's lives will change and they will be able to have immortality. Fantastic, isn't it?
