The surgeon refused the Russian head transplant patient. Human head transplant operation How did the head transplant end?

The world's first human head transplant will take place in China. This was announced by the Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero, who is going to perform this unique operation. Formerly Russian programmer Valery Spiridonov. But - now, apparently, he decided to change plans.

30-year-old Valery Spiridonov has a complex genetic disease - spinal muscular atrophy. He is practically unable to move. Everyone expected that Valery would become the first person in history to receive a body transplant. Or the head, there is no consensus among doctors on how to call this transplant. He has been preparing for the most complicated and so far unique operation since 2015.

"I'm not trying to commit some kind of sophisticated suicide. No, it's not. I'm happy with what I have. And I have confidence that everyone understands what they are doing. It's just that someone technically should be first. Why not me?" he said.

The transplant was supposed to be performed by a neurosurgeon from Italy, Sergio Canavero. Spiridonov flew to the USA to meet with him after Internet consultations.

And now, six months before the planned operation, the news comes: the first patient to receive a head transplant will not be a Russian, but a citizen of China. The official reason is as follows: they decided to carry out the operation in China, and the donor and recipient must belong to the same race.

“We will have to look for donors among the locals. And we cannot give the snow-skinned Valery the body of a person of a different race. We cannot name the new candidate yet. We are in the selection process,” said Sergio Canavero, a neurosurgeon.

However, many are sure that it is more about funding and national prestige. In China, a head transplant operation is funded by the state. A separate clinic in Harbin will be allocated for this. Dozens of local doctors will help the Italian neurosurgeon. And the choice of the patient, most likely, will also fall on a citizen of China.

“The Chinese decided on this operation because they want to get the Nobel Prize and to recommend their country as an engine of scientific progress. This is a kind of new space race,” Canavero is sure.

The operation is expected to take about 36 hours and cost $15 million. After freezing, the heads will be separated from the bodies. And the recipient's head will be attached to the donor's body with the help of special biological glue. Polyethylene glycol will be injected into the affected areas of the spinal cord, with its help it has already been possible to restore connections between thousands of neurons in animals.

Trial operations on patients in a state of clinical death are planned for autumn 2017. This is necessary to hone the technique of surgical manipulations. Previously, Sergio Canavero had already succeeded in sewing on a second mouse head and transplanting a head into a monkey. However, the monkey was euthanized 20 hours after the operation. And the transplanted mouse head did not send impulses to other parts of the body.

And many neurosurgeons still doubt that when performing an operation on a person, it will really be possible to successfully fuse the spinal cord and preserve the vital functions of the brain.

“Technically, there are many problems with stitching many vessels, nerves, bones. But these are solvable options. The main problem is how to make impulses from the head through the stitched spinal cord go down and back? Unfortunately, this technique does not work yet, there is no such technique ", says the Russian doctor.

The Italian surgeon himself estimates the chances of success as 90 percent. And I am sure that this will be a breakthrough in the field of transplantation, which will give a chance for life to people with many serious diseases - from spinal muscular atrophy to currently incurable forms of cancer.

This topic began to appear and be widely voiced already, probably a couple of years ago, at the same time. Valery Spiridonov, a resident of Vladimir, said he was ready to become the first patient of the Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero and to undergo a head transplant. Valery has been suffering from the incurable Werdnig-Hoffman disease since childhood.

If at first it sounded somehow vague and, to a greater extent, with a desire to loudly declare oneself both on one side and on the other, now real actions, amounts, deadlines and opportunities are becoming more and more clear. And now there is a date for the operation - December 2017.

Sergio Canavero, a former neurosurgeon from Turin, gave an interview to Libero Quotidiano and explained why he wants to participate in a risky experiment and how realistic these plans are.

As journalist Alessandro Milan notes, “After a two-hour interview, it remains unclear whether you are looking at a visionary who will make a revolutionary breakthrough in medicine in two years, or a person who is obsessed with an idea that was initially doomed to failure.”

What do you say?

Sergio Canavero is aware of this and calmly accepts the most fierce criticism addressed to him. For him, the most important thing is to perform the world's first head transplant operation to enable paralyzed people to walk again, giving them a new body. Canavero outlined all the details of his revolutionary project in medicine in his book “Il cervello immortale” (“The brain is immortal”) (published by Sperling & Kupfer).

L.Q.: Professor, do you know that they call you the new Professor Frankenstein?

S.K.: This is a great honor for me.

L.Q.: Really?

S.K.: Of course. This means that after 200 years we will finally be able to make a dream come true, and every time someone manages to turn a dream into reality is a huge success. Victor Frankenstein wanted to challenge nature itself, but when he realized the horror of what had happened, he tried to destroy the monster he had created. I also thought about the consequences of human head transplantation and looked for possible solutions to this problem. So it's a great honor for me to be compared to Frankenstein.

L.Q.: We will return to the solutions you found. Tell me, when did you first think about a head transplant?

S.K.: As a child. When I was 8 years old, I watched the TV series "Medical Center" ("Medical Center"), and they showed cerebral angiography. I was simply mesmerized. At the age of 15 I read a special issue of the journal "Scienze" ("Sciences") devoted to the brain, and at 17 - about the experiment of Dr. White, who in the USA performed an operation to transplant the head from one monkey to the body of another. Then an insight descended on me, and I decided to devote myself to medicine.

L.Q.: And when did you start materializing your idea?

S.K.: In 1993, I came across articles written 30 years ago by the American neurosurgeon Freeman. He, too, was looking for his own methods of treating paralysis. This convinced me that the transplantation of the human head is quite real.

L.Q.: When will the first human head transplant be performed?

S.K .: If everything goes as we planned, the world's first operation will be carried out on Christmas 2017 in China.

L.Q.: Valery Spiridonov will be the first patient to receive a new body, as planned?

S.K.: No, the Chinese project does not provide for the transplantation of Valery's head for obvious reasons. We cannot give him, as white as snow, the body of a Chinese. There are currently no patients ready for surgery.

L.Q.: Could you explain in general terms the essence of the operation?

S.K.: To begin with, a suitable patient is determined from an immunological and physical point of view. After a suitable donor is found, you can proceed directly to the operation itself. The recipient and donor are brought to the operating room and placed on adjacent tables, at a distance of two meters. Two teams of surgeons work simultaneously. When everything is ready, both heads are cut off.

The donor's head is given to relatives for burial, and the recipient's head is transplanted onto a new body. However, before cutting off his head must be frozen at 15 °C. And only then transplanted.

(To cut through the spinal cord, the surgeon will need a special knife that can work with an error of up to one millionth of a meter. Spiridonov's head will be temporarily frozen to prevent bleeding while the spinal cord is connected, and then attached to a new body. Some scientists warn that connecting a person's head to a new body could lead to "hitherto unknown levels of insanity" To prepare the patient for the new experience, a team of programmers developed a virtual reality system.)

L.Q.: And how much will the operation cost?

S.K .: If we manage to carry out the operation in China, then its cost will be 15 million dollars. In Europe or the US, the cost rises to 100 million.

L.Q.: Listen to you, we are talking about the most common operation. But, as you probably know, many neurosurgeons say that it is impossible to connect the recipient's bone marrow to the donor's bone marrow. In Italy you are subjected to the most merciless criticism.

S.K .: In Italy, I was denied an operation, therefore, the opinion of Italians does not matter to me. If you're not comfortable here, they just kick you out. Professor Sarr from the Mayo Clinic, a leading specialist and a true professional, spoke positively about the possibility of transplantation and the technique I use.

L.Q.: Listen, what happens if the patient dies after a head transplant?

S.K .: When Barnard performed his first heart transplant, his patient lived for only 18 days, the second - for a year and a half. Every transplant has its share of risk. But before the operation, a very detailed plan is drawn up. In fact, the first head transplant will be performed by us two months before the operation in 2017 in China: we will perform a trial head transplant on two patients who have been declared brain dead in order to hone our technique. This will serve as the final stage, will become our Apollo 10 before landing on the moon on Apollo 11.

L.Q.: As for potential patients, who are they?

S.K.: For the most part, people are completely paralyzed.

L.Q.: And can you guarantee that the head transplant surgery will give them the chance to walk again?

S.K.: Yes. I will give you one name: Christopher Reeve (American theater, film and television actor, director, screenwriter, public figure). He gained worldwide fame after playing the role of Superman in the American film of the same name in 1978 and its sequels. On May 27, 1995, after falling from a horse during a race in Virginia, he broke his cervical vertebrae and became paralyzed. The doctors could not put the actor on his feet, but saved his life by performing a unique operation. He was paralyzed below the shoulders, could not breathe on his own, and could speak only with the help of an apparatus inserted into the trachea. Doctors connected an electrical stimulator to the paralyzed diaphragm of the actor, which caused contractions of the main respiratory muscle. Since then, he has devoted his life to rehabilitation therapy and, together with his wife, opened a center for teaching the paralyzed the skills of independent existence. Died of a heart attack on October 10, 2004). If Reeve were alive, we would cut out his spinal cord without damaging it and using a special technique, and then "glue" it to a new body and Reeve would be able to walk again.

L.Q.: You are very confident in your abilities.

S.K.: Well, let's assume that something goes wrong, and a paralyzed patient after a transplant will not be able to walk. In this case, nothing is lost for science. When Edison was told, even before he could create his first electric light bulb, “you made 999 attempts and they all failed”, he replied: “It was not a failure. It was just 999 wrong ways to make a light bulb." In science, everything is achieved by trial and error.

L.Q.: Yes, but in this case you will create another paralyzed, even more crippled patient, with the body of one and with the head of another person.

S.K.: I am 100% sure that he will be able to walk. When the Wright brothers built their first plane, everyone said they were crazy.

L.Q.: Professor Canavero, what is your real goal, why are you participating in the experiment?

S.K .: Until now, I have always answered that “for the treatment of serious pathologies.” But in fact, I have deeper motives.

L.Q.: Which ones?

S.K.: I will explain. At 30, I was a materialist, even a reductionist. I, like many others, believed in the idea that "the brain produces consciousness." In 1989, I saw the movie Flatliners, starring Julia Roberts. In it, medical students stopped the work of their hearts with the intention of seeing the other world. For me it was a revelation. I've been dealing with near-death experiences for years and I said to myself, "Of course it would be nice to do something like that."

Just imagine: the moment when the head of the recipient patient has already been removed, but not yet transplanted onto a new body, is the moment of transition between life and death. With the help of a head transplant, I will not only be able to cure still incurable diseases, but also to learn what happens after death, and thus solve the problem of consciousness.

L.Q.: I'm afraid I didn't quite understand you.

S.K .: I am convinced that consciousness is not generated by the brain, therefore, when a person dies, his consciousness continues to live. With a successful head transplant, I can prove this fact scientifically. Thus, two things will be achieved: a step towards "immortality" and proof of the absolute uselessness of all religions.

L.Q.: The uselessness of religions?

SK: The main reason why we resort to religion is the fear of death. Religions, to lessen this fear, speak of the soul going to Heaven and require proof of faith. I will prove that consciousness continues to live after physical death, but I will do it on a scientific basis. If the brain transplanted to the new body can "tell" us what it saw during the transition, we will have proof that consciousness is present at the moment of this temporary death, even if the brain is not functioning. Consequently, there will be no need for religion and faith to overcome the fear of death. In twenty years or so, all religions will disappear.

L.Q.: As I understand it, you don't believe in God?

S.K.: Yes, you are right, I am an atheist.

L.Q.: Aren't you afraid that your technology may eventually fall into the wrong hands, and some modern "Hitler" will be able to ensure "immortality" in this way?

S.K.: This is an ethical dilemma that I have thought about a lot. I can't let this happen. So I launched the Nuovo mondo (New World) project.

L.Q.: What is its essence?

SK: It's based on Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Since I am against the death penalty and believe that prisons are not needed by modern society, the only way to stop a potential psychopath is to "reprogram" his brain. Society, in addition to concern about extending life through head transplantation, should think about controlling the brains of potential criminals with the help of neurostimulation methods, which I have been working on for many years. In my opinion, the only way to stop evil is to control human behavior in advance.

In fact, one should not think that these are just words. Sergio Canavero at the end of 2016 is one step closer to transplanting a human head. The doctor operated on a dog and a mouse.

He did not completely separate the heads from the bodies, but only cut the spine. The specialist managed to restore thousands of damaged neurons with the help of polyethylene glycol. It is a food additive that is used in the production of milk. The result stunned even the surgeon himself. Within seven days the dog began to stand on its paws, and after three weeks it was already running and feeling great. The mouse went on the mend even faster.

Sergio Canavero, neurosurgeon: “After the operation, which was supposed to be fatal for animals, we see amazing results. The mouse recovered in 24 hours - with almost the entire set of neurophysiological functions. This is unprecedented. It’s amazing, I would even call it a miracle.”

However, many experts do not share Canavero's enthusiasm. Skeptics say the experiment needs to be done more carefully. But the surgeon himself is sure that he is on the way to a sensation.

Here's another opinion:
Academician Sergei Gauthier, Director of the Shumakov Federal Scientific Center for Transplantology and Artificial Organs, Chief Transplantologist of the Russian Federation:

The idea itself is attractive, as it makes it possible to preserve the human personality in various catastrophes, serious illnesses of the body that doom a person to death. It seems to me that if you carefully consider the course of the operation, all its details and nuances, calculate the possible risks, then it is technically feasible. In the mid-1950s, our great compatriot Vladimir Demikhov proved in experiments on dogs that a head transplant is practically possible. He proved the possibility of restoring the blood circulation of the brain in the transplanted head, maintaining the viability of the brain. Here you can learn more about this experiment -

Sergio Canavero. Source: Lisi Niesner/EPA

Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero has not been heard from since the (partial) rat head transplant. Very little news has been published for a long time. But recently, Canavero announced that China had performed the first successful human head transplant. Many media released a description of the operation under such headings. But in fact, we are talking about transplanting the head of a corpse onto a dead body. This operation is announced as a "rehearsal" of transplantation of a conditionally living head onto a conditionally living body.

Canavero that the operation was carried out by a team of Chinese surgeons led by Ren Xiaoping, who in 2016 performed similar work on the body and head of a monkey. Then it was not entirely clear what had happened. Scientists have announced the transplantation of the head of a monkey. The composite creature (body + head) had to be euthanized after 20 hours for some "ethical reasons". The operation itself was declared as conditionally successful. Now, the transplantation of the head of a corpse is described in much the same way. Canavero claims that the Chinese managed to transplant the head by connecting nerve endings and blood vessels, albeit dead ones. The Italian claims that the operation went as planned.

For an ordinary person, such news looks quite plausible. Indeed, doctors have already learned how to transplant many organs, including the heart. And not only the heart. There are known successful operations to transplant the face, penis, uterus and even hands (we are talking about transplantation, and not sewing one's own limbs to the body - doctors learned to do this a long time ago).

But what about the head? Everything is much more complicated here. The fact is that doctors have never performed an operation to restore a completely divided (cut or divided due to injury) human spinal cord. We are talking about the need to connect millions of nerve endings, which is much more difficult than “sewing on” a new heart (although this operation is very difficult). An organ transplant requires the connection of a much smaller number of nerve endings or blood vessels than in the case of a head transplant. It was only in 2017 that doctors learned how to transplant hands from one person to another in such a way that they could function normally (not completely, but at least partially).

The same Canavero previously announced the successful "gluing" of the spinal cord of mice. But even this has been questioned by a number of neurosurgeons. The scientists who carried out this operation did not provide a number of details in the description of their experiments.

And here we are talking about mice, about the restoration of a deliberately damaged spinal cord. As for a person and head transplantation, everything is more complicated here. The fact is that our brain is a very delicate organ that is permanently damaged in the absence of oxygen supply / nutrition. A few minutes of disruption of the blood supply to the head and that's all - irreversible disorders of the brain functions appear. It may be possible to avoid a cardinal disruption of the functioning of the brain by cooling the head during transplantation. But this is only a guess, research on this topic has not yet been conducted.

A heart cooled in a special way can last quite a long time, and it can be transplanted. But the brain? It is unlikely. Many brain experts believe that even if this organ is cooled and theoretically successfully transplanted, it will not be able to function normally.

Even if this succeeds, there is no guarantee that the happy owner of a new body will not have a desire to get rid of it. For example, once a patient, who received a freshly sewn penis, soon decided to get rid of it. The reason is purely psychological. Similar problems without such a radical solution were observed in patients who received a new face. But reasoning about psychology is here for the sake of a red word, since the success of transplanting even the head of a corpse is a big question.

In the annals of medicine there is information about the successful recovery of significant damage to the spinal cord. But it talks about solving the problem of trauma in a small child, whose nervous system is still developing, and not in an adult. The operation to connect the spinal cord of a donor and an acceptor so far looks like pure fantasy.

What really happened?

In fact, a "successful" transplant is the transplantation of the head of a corpse onto the body of the same corpse. Yes, of course, operations on dead bodies are the most important aspect of the training of surgeons. Before starting a transplant of the heart or other organs, specialists trained for many months. Here, in fact, one can say that "the path to success is strewn with corpses." And there is no negative connotation here.

But there is one problem. If the same heart transplant, which is far inferior in complexity to a head transplant, required training on dozens of dead bodies, then what can we say about the head transplant itself? Here, hundreds of training operations are likely to be required before the real work can begin. But Canavero claims that the current operation is something like an introduction to an operation on a living person (more precisely, two conditionally living people). And right now, she's the only one.

It cannot be called successful, since the operation can be considered as such only after it has been performed with a living patient who remained alive and capable after the work of the surgeon. “Perhaps this procedure showed the possibility of successfully connecting nerves and blood vessels, but the operation itself was not successful, because it requires a result in the form of a living and functioning organism,” says Dean Burnett, a neurosurgeon.

“We are still far from the goal. You can connect two halves of cars together and call it a successful job, but after trying to start the car, the system will ignite or simply stop working.”

Barnett says that Canavero has spoken many times about successful operations that other surgeons do not consider as such.

“I don’t understand why he is so sure. And no one seems to know. He didn't publish anything. His 'successful' transplant was known long before the results were published in the form of a scientific paper," Burnett said. The scientist says that parts of the human body cannot be added or removed in the same way as it happens with figures from Lego. There are so many problems when connecting the head and body, even if they belong to the same person.

Scientific articles describing the operations performed? Why are they. Enough with tabloid publications

The problem is that Canavero talks more than he writes. A real scientist must record his success with a long series of publications, which describe in detail how the operation took place, what successful and unsuccessful moments can be distinguished. Instead, Canavero gives numerous interviews claiming success. Of course, he needs the attention of society, but the problem is that scientists cannot be convinced by the usual "hype", something more serious is required than just statements.

What's next?

After publication in a number of media with statements about his “success”, Canavero began to promise that an operation with a conditionally living patient would soon take place. We are talking about a person in a vegetative state. At the same time, Canavero claims that there are already “volunteers”. While the truth is unclear how people in a coma could inform the Italian of their consent to participate in medical experiments.

Now, talk about performing an operation with a patient who is conscious (without anesthesia) has subsided somewhat.

Valery Spiridonov, a Russian programmer, recently spoke about how his participation in a head transplant operation is a very big question. The preparation of the operation is actually frozen. The problem, according to Spiridonov, is that Canavero receives funding from the Chinese government, which plans to conduct the first operation with a citizen of its own country. The Chinese, in particular, provided the surgeon with his own laboratory in a local clinic. Well, since Russia does not give the scientist any funds, Canavero agreed to the conditions of the Chinese.

“As for my own operation, I have a large number of personal plans, personal affairs. While Dr. Canavero is experimenting, I am taking care of my health, my future. I don't place all my bets on him, I do what I like. But I support it in every possible way and believe that this technology should be developed as a logical continuation of transplantology,”

In China, for the first time, a head was transplanted from one dead person to another. It was originally planned that the head of the Russian programmer Valery Spiridonov would be transplanted onto the donor's body, but the story had a sad ending. The surgeon refused to operate on a patient from Russia.

On Friday, November 17, the world's first human head transplant took place in China. True, the head was transplanted from one dead body to another.

The point of such a transplant was to successfully connect the spinal cord, nerves and blood vessels. And as the surgeon Sergio Canavero assured, he succeeded quite successfully. Earlier it was planned to transplant the head of the Russian programmer Valery Spiridonov. But this story ended sadly - the operation was canceled.

The beginning of the story

Recall that in early 2015, Italian doctor Sergio Canavero announced that he was ready to transplant a head from a living volunteer to a donor body. This information was seen by the Russian programmer Valery Spiridonov, and could not but respond. The fact is that Spiridonov suffers from a congenital disease - Werdnig-Hoffman syndrome. Because of this, his back muscles are almost completely atrophied. That is, a 32-year-old guy is practically immobilized, and over time this situation is aggravated. The surgeon met with Valery personally and was convinced of the sincerity of his intentions, his readiness to take risks.

Fact! Despite the fact that Valery practically cannot move without the help of a wheelchair, he leads an active life. The guy has been working since the age of 16, he is a successful programmer. He travels a lot, constantly communicates with interesting people. Therefore, as he himself said in an interview, you should not think that he wants to die in this way.

The operation was scheduled for December 2017. The doctor and the patient had no doubts that it would be difficult to find a donor. But it is possible, because every day people get into fatal car accidents, and some are sentenced to death. It was among them that it was planned to find a donor body.

However, these plans never came to fruition. The fact is that the sponsor of the operation, the Government of China, insists that the patient be a citizen of this country. In addition, it is important that the donor be of the same race as the patient. It is not possible to transplant Spiridonov's head onto the body of a Chinese. That is why all preparations for the operation had to be frozen. And it is difficult to say whether Spiridonov will be operated on in the future.

The essence of the operation

Previously, Sergio conducted similar successful experiments only on mice. He transplanted the head from one mouse to another. But the operation to transplant the monkey's head was unsuccessful. First, the spinal cord was not connected, but only the blood vessels. Secondly, the animal was in great pain afterward, and the doctors had to euthanize him after 20 hours. That is why many scientists are horrified by what Hanavero is about to do.

The surgeon himself is very optimistic. He declares that he will definitely do such operations again. In addition, in the future, he plans to transplant the brain of an elderly person into the body of a young donor. So, according to him, it will be possible to conquer death.

The first ever transplantation of a human head to a new body took place. The most complicated transplant operation went on continuously for 18 hours in China.

According to the site, the Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero (Sergio Canavero) reported that the head transplant operation was successful. During the procedure, the surgeons managed to restore the functioning of the spine, nerves and blood vessels. It is worth noting that this operation took place with two corpses of people whose brains were still active. Canavero was assisted by highly qualified specialists from Harbin Medical University. Last year, experts successfully transplanted the head of a live monkey.

It is noted that in the near future Canavero is going to perform a similar operation on a living person. A test operation was performed on a corpse in preparation for a future operation on a living person. The test subject was supposed to be Russian programmer Valery Spiridonov, who suffers from a rare disease, which caused his body to almost completely fail. He volunteered.

However, Spiridonov himself recently revealed that so far the well-known surgeon has refused to operate on him, and a resident of China will become the first test subject. This situation arose due to the significant funding of medical operations of this kind by the Chinese government. Due to the fact that Russia does not allocate funds for research, Sergio Canavero is forced to comply with some formalities. According to preliminary information, the operation on Spiridonov will be carried out later.

In the community, such operations are still considered wrong from the point of view of ethics, and many experts criticize Canavero, the site reports.