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Surgeon Plans To 'Reawaken' Cryogenically Frozen Brains, Transplant Them Into Someone Else's Skull (nationalpost.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the straight-out-of-science-fiction-novel dept.

Sergio Canavero, the Italian surgeon who plans to perform the world's first human head transplant within the next year, says he is preparing to reawaken cryogenically frozen brains and transplant them into someone else's skull. "In an interview with a German-language magazine, Canavero says he will attempt to bring the first brains frozen in liquid nitrogen at an Arizona-based cryogenics bank back to life 'not in 100 years,' but three years at the latest," reports National Post. From the report: Transplanting a brain only -- and not an entire head -- gets around formidable rejection issues, Canavero said, since there will be no need to reconnect and stitch up severed vessels, nerves, tendons and muscles as there is when a new head is fused onto a brain-dead donor body. Canavero allows that one "problematic" issue with brain transplants, however, would be that "no aspect of your original external body remains the same." "Your head is no longer there, your brain is transplanted into an entirely different skull," he told OOOM magazine, published by the same company that handles the Italian brain surgeon's public relations. The flamboyant neuroscientist who some ethicists have decried as "nuts" rattled the transplant world when he first outlined his plans for a human head transplant two years ago in the journal, Surgical Neurology International. Bioethicist Arthur Caplan called Canavero's latest proposal to merge head transplants with "resurrecting" the frozen dead beyond ridiculous. "People have their own doubts about whether anything can be salvaged from these frozen heads or bodies because of the damage freezing does," said Caplan, head of ethics at NYU Langone Medical Centre in New York City. "Then saying that he has some technique for making this happen, that has never been demonstrated in frozen animals, is absurd."

125 comments

  1. Pffft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I had this idea when I was 8.
    Tell us when it actually works.

  2. Congratulations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dear Sergio,

    All the best to your endeavours.

    Yours sincerely
    Frank N. Stein

    1. Re:Congratulations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dear Sergio,

      Stop playing with our food.

      Seriously,
      Rob Zombie

      PS: Braaaaaaiiiins!

    2. Re:Congratulations! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      FOR SALE

      One pan, slightly used, excellent condition. Just $27.95, or 3 easy monthly payments of $16.95. Includes S&H.

      Inquire with Dr C. Forrester, Deep 13 (somewhere under the launch pad near Gizmonics Institute).

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    3. Re:Congratulations! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only this time, let's make sure the name of the brain donor is not Abby Normal, shall we?

    4. Re:Congratulations! by MangoCats · · Score: 1

      On the reality front, he tried a head, didn't work, so he figures a brain only might be easier...

      The optic and auditory nerves alone worry me, not to mention therapy to regain tongue and vocal cord control, etc. Imagine if the brain transplant works and the consciousness reawakens in a completely sensory deprived state. Probably not what the transplantee had in mind.

    5. Re:Congratulations! by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      This assumes the brain's cells aren't all dead, burst from the freezing.

      Yes, I'd be pissed at awakening to a largely numb body because you were an experiment decades ahead of schedule.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  3. Syrinx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    I can't even wrap my head around this.

    1. Re:Syrinx by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are always trying to get inside my head.

  4. In before by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

    the neckbeards start foaming at the mouth when they correct the headline by saying its a body transplant.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:In before by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 1

      Of course it isn't; it's skull repurposing.

      --
      No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
    2. Re:In before by toonces33 · · Score: 1

      Skull re-accommodating.

  5. Bioethecist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Bioethicist Arthur Caplan called Canavero's latest proposal to merge head transplants with "resurrecting" the frozen dead beyond ridiculous.

    I mean it doesn't seem feasible to me but let's hear from someone who is actually qualified to judge.

    1. Re:Bioethecist by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      Perhaps he's considering the should we? aspect rather than could we?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    2. Re:Bioethecist by sheramil · · Score: 2

      We're qualified to judge. Personally, I will be more impressed with Dr Canavero when he starts talking about the amazing things he's done, and less about the amazing and Headline-grabbing things he claims that he's going to do.

    3. Re:Bioethecist by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 3, Funny

      He's already had some very public success. Just look at how he transplanted a whole human onto and orange squirrel's butt!

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:Bioethecist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is though. There is almost 0 chance this will work. The scientist truly is mad or is somehow making money from this and doesn't care, knowing it's doomed to failure.

      1. There is no reason to believe the body won't reject a foreign brain like it does any other foreign implanted organ.

      2. Connecting the brain is extremely complicated on its own. It's not like it's just one connection point as it's made to sound like.

      3. Let's say it somehow does work. The implanted brain grew to operate an entirely different body. Perhaps it can somehow adapt and operate the body correctly. It will then have a nightmare conflict over who it truly is as the body it knew itself to be is dead and it's now in someone else's. Everyone the dead person knew will still be around the implanted brain person expecting a continuation of their existing relationships, while the implanted brain person will have no bond with them and miss the people it knew, who will similarly freak out when seeing the person they knew and loved in an entirely different body.

    5. Re:Bioethecist by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      ...

      2. Connecting the brain is extremely complicated on its own. It's not like it's just one connection point as it's made to sound like.

      ...

      This looks like a job for the good old ZIF socket!
      Honey, please don't play with the lever sticking out of my spine...

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  6. IRB approval? by pz · · Score: 4

    In the US, doing anything that involves human experimentation -- and this is clearly experimentation -- requires approval from an institutional review board (IRB), otherwise no funding agency support the work, and no journal is going to accept the results for publication.

    This fellow's plans don't come close to passing the sniff test, let alone IRB-level rigorous examination. And let me tell you from personal experience, getting IRB approval is not a walk in the park.

    Who is paying for this work? Why are any of the cryobanks going to allow him access to their ... um ... residents?

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    1. Re: IRB approval? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The humans in question are dead and most likely they or their relatives consented to attempts to restore them to life (in the car of the cryogenically frozen ones) or to organ donation (in the car of the body donors). It's hard to see what the ethical issues would be that aren't already raised by subjecting body's to the cryogenic process which is just as experimental (but again - these are dead people who consented to this when they were alive).

      The reason the facilities would agree is that it frees up storage space in a relatively justifiable way - they can't easily justify just binning the bodies but they can try to resurrect the person as that's the service they were selling to begin with.

    2. Re: IRB approval? by ByteSlicer · · Score: 1

      It's hard to see what the ethical issues would be that aren't already raised by subjecting body's to the cryogenic process which is just as experimental

      No, it's not that hard. In the off chance this quack succeeds in reviving someone, the chances are high that there will be substantial tissue damage.
      The patient may experience unbearable pain, and being paralyzed, may not be able to tell anyone, so it essentially becomes torture.
      When freezing someone, you end their suffering, so that's much more ethical than inducing more suffering.

    3. Re: IRB approval? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could always say that about cryogenics though - the freak chance that they somehow return to life in a decomposing condition or somehow resume consciousness in their frozen state! It clearly isn't going to happen and neither is this.

    4. Re: IRB approval? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      The issue arises of the fact that at least he thinks there is a nonzero chance that the humans in question don't remain dead.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:IRB approval? by irving47 · · Score: 4, Informative

      The cryobank mentioned actually denies involvement with him, flat-out. I get a feeling we're being trolled and this is a viral marketing campaign for a crappy movie.

      --
      I had a sucky sig.
    6. Re: IRB approval? by pz · · Score: 1

      When freezing someone, they're already declared dead, to my understanding. The oversight approval isn't so far-fetched to imaging obtaining.

      But, as you pointed out, the intent to re-animate that has very serious potential adverse results is not something that is going to be taken lightly by an oversight board.

      --

      Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
    7. Re:IRB approval? by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      The cryobank mentioned actually denies involvement with him, flat-out. I get a feeling we're being trolled and this is a viral marketing campaign for a crappy movie.

      There are ways, Dude - You don't wanna know about it, believe me

    8. Re: IRB approval? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Somehow this reminded me of "The monkey's paw"

    9. Re:IRB approval? by MangoCats · · Score: 1

      Cryobanks are privately funded, it's a whole (weird) world onto itself - barely clear of the murder statutes, most "residents" marginally funded while a few pump in impressive amounts of capital. It's a good example of capitalism - it exists because there is sufficient demand to support it, not because IRBs approve.

    10. Re:IRB approval? by MangoCats · · Score: 1

      The cryobank mentioned actually denies involvement with him, flat-out. I get a feeling we're being trolled and this is a viral marketing campaign for a crappy movie.

      There are ways, Dude - You don't wanna know about it, believe me

      I heard a story about a rich, sick old dude from India, got himself a team of the best western doctors available (using absurd piles of money to buy their time), they told him his case was basically hopeless - he needed multiple organ transplants and he would be dead long before donors could be found. They were retained for another 2 days, and within 24 hours of the transplant diagnosis compatible organs were delivered by private courier for implantation.

    11. Re:IRB approval? by slapys · · Score: 1

      Like this one?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    12. Re:IRB approval? by slapys · · Score: 1

      In all fairness, I actually really enjoyed this movie.

    13. Re:IRB approval? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If true, I'm sure we can thank the "donors" for their generosity.

    14. Re: IRB approval? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      More like The Island of Dr. Moreau.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    15. Re: IRB approval? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      There's an old sci-fi short story of an astronaut on Pluto - suit failure, almost instantly down to almost absolute zero. Under those conditions, the electrical impulses in his brain continue to think since there's no resistance. He stands there for eternity just watching the sun rise and set, and the stars, unable to move a muscle.

      Is this a life? He can't even die, but he can go crazy.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    16. Re: IRB approval? by camperdave · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't work. Impulses in the brain are electro-chemical. The chemical part would cease at absolute zero, bringing a halt to all impulses, all thoughts.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    17. Re: IRB approval? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      I know, but strange things happen near absolute zero. Just look at Helium. Maybe at that temperature, there's no need for chemical impulses to fuel the production of electricity - whatever electricity was there would just continue to circulate, same as vortices don't break down in superfluids like He.

      Probably not, but imagine the horror stories possible. Cryonically frozen, successfully revived, but every single one is totally insane after spending years with no outside stimulation. They go around killing people and eating their flesh. Maybe we could call them, I don't know, zombies? :-)

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    18. Re:IRB approval? by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      "Why are any of the cryobanks going to allow him access to their ... um ... residents?"

      I think people get admitted to these things with the primary understanding that one day this can happen.

      If the cryobanks say "no" to this, it upends their mainline business.

    19. Re: IRB approval? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with that is that isn't how the physiology works. Typically there's at least three neurons involved with the transmission of sensory information to relevant section of the brain for processing of the signal. That's four synapses that must be spanned and contrary to popular conception, those gaps are not places where a packet of info carried as an electrical signal jumps to the next link in the chain. In actuality the transmission is more like a binary signal. Electricity travels to the end of a nerve fiber and pushed the action potentials of organelles storing neurotransmitters up to the point that they discharge the neurotransmitter which is ejected across to the other side of the junction. There the neurotransmitter mates with a receptor in the cellular wall which causes that fiber to send an electrical signal to its other end and the process repeats. It's all basically binary code until the brain receives the signals and extrapolates a sensory "picture" from the frequency and origin of the signals.

      If you're frozen totally solid, those neurotransmitters can't trigger the "passing" of the signal and so no brain function. The interesting thing about that story is that it should theoretically be possible to bring that instantaneously/totally frozen astronaut back to life if somebody wanted to go retrieve him. The reason that reviving a frozen person is so hard is that the cell walls get ruptured by the ice crystals. If you can avoid that, there's not much issue with reviving someone, as it's the fundamental mechanism that allows some arctic creatures to weather the winter where they freeze solid. Those animals have a substance in their biochemistry that inhibits ice crystal formation but another way to do it is to supercool cellular amounts of water in a very, very short time. Doing so inhibits the ice from forming a highly ordered and very sharp crystalline lattice. Instead it freezes into an amorphous state where is far less likely to lance the cellular membrane. The science fiction aspect of this is that all that happens in nanoseconds and even at a temperature of a fraction of 1 Kelvin, you're not going to completely freeze a human that fast especially if the cold is only impinging from a small hole ia a heated suit.
           

    20. Re: IRB approval? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Who's talking about physiology here? Obviously there are no chemical processes in a brain frozen to near absolute zero - but in theory some electrical activity is possible, especially if energized by outside radiation. You're assuming that all intelligence requires biochemical processes. That's a big assumption, and one that we can't say one way or another, because we just don't know.

      Also, a helmet shattering in a 1 degree absolute environment is going to get your brain frozen pretty fast, especially if you're standing in a pool of liquid helium that, because helium atoms are attracted to everything else more than each other, will flow up the suit and boil off when contacting the head, carrying heat away rapidly.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  7. Severed? by Gizan · · Score: 2

    It says you don't have to deal with severed nerves and veins, but don you still have to do that with the brain transplant? Like shouldn't he first bring the brain back alive with artificial organs first? Or are dead people cheaper?

  8. A Zuvembie Apocolypse? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Or at least it would be if this was a comic book and the Comics Code Authority was still in effect.

  9. cryogenically frozen brains services by ls671 · · Score: 1

    Well, if it doesn't work at first, an easy way out would be to say that the cryogenically freezing brain process needs to be enhanced...

    --
    Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    1. Re:cryogenically frozen brains services by Megol · · Score: 1

      That is already known, research in vitrification of larger organs is commonly seen as the way forward.

      The people believing in resurrection of frozen dead humans (and human parts) know that we have no current technology that can repair the known damages, if pressed they will admit that there is a huge chance that it isn't physically possible to do. Remember that the frozen ex-humans have to be pronounced dead before the long freezing process begins - it is likely that enough tissue have been destroyed than nothing of the persons memory or personality would remain even if it would be possible to revive a brain.

      And Alcor have already commented on this ludicrous idea.

    2. Re:cryogenically frozen brains services by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      research in vitrification of larger organs is commonly seen as the way forward.

      You want to turn them into glass?

  10. Yeah, sounds nuts alright. by Ihlosi · · Score: 1

    They expect to put a brain in a different skull and not have to deal with all kinds of reconnection issues? What about connecting the brain to the spinal cord? What about connecting the brain to its blood supply?

    1. Re:Yeah, sounds nuts alright. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What about connecting the brain to the spinal cord?

      It explains over a paragraph and a half in the article.

      I for one would love to see the journal papers and reports for the over 100 mice he claims it worked successfully on.

      If that part alone is true, then screw head/brain/full-body transplants, this would literally be the cure to full paralysis due to spinal cord injuries.

    2. Re:Yeah, sounds nuts alright. by meerling · · Score: 1

      Yep, he's either delusional, or it's part of some huge scam.
      I'm voting for delusional.

      Still, the brain only would actually be harder than a head transplant. Kind of the same way it's easier for surgeons, real ones that is, to transplant the entire heart and both lungs than it is to just do the heart.

      Of course, that cretin should first get his epic fail and possible murder or manslaughter charges for his head transplant he's already committed himself to before he goes for the wetware only version. Speaking of committed, why hasn't anyone dragged him off to the nuthouse for an examination yet?

    3. Re:Yeah, sounds nuts alright. by Ihlosi · · Score: 2
      this would literally be the cure to full paralysis due to spinal cord injuries.

      Yes, pretty much like finding the holy grail.

      Only suffering from incomplete paralysis due to spinal cord stuff, but I am still waiting for this.

    4. Re:Yeah, sounds nuts alright. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The blood supply is "easy", in the sense that arterial surgery is common enough.

      They can't reconnect nerves though. They can't repair a severed spinal cord, even though the person is alive with no frost damage.

      So if they manage to revive a brain, it'll be revived into lock-in syndrome. If it "wakes up" at all.

      Brain scanning techniques may show if the brain is thinking - activity in areas responsible for conscious thought. Monitoring nerve ends may tell if the brain is trying to move a limb. Don't know if there is any way to give feedback - so no two-way communication possible.

      If a brain wakes up with all nerves cut off, there may be phantom pains in the whole body. Like those pains people feel from an amputated limb.

      Experimenters have succeeded in extracting some motor signals from people with a severed spinal cord. So some coarse muscle movement may be possible to arrange. But eyes and ears are more complicated - the brain will certainly be deaf and blind.

      An attempt "in 3 years" won't achieve much useful - but nothing is achieved by freezing brains either so . . .

    5. Re: Yeah, sounds nuts alright. by Miamicanes · · Score: 1

      Plus, a transplanted *head* might end up paralyzed from the neck down in its donor body, but at least the patient might have working eyesight & facial muscles. Transplant a brain alone, and the patient doesn't even get to have *that* as a 'Plan B' consolation.

      Another possibility is that at best, you'd be resurrecting a zombie whose brain effectively had its programming erased when it died (or, perhaps, would be like a Sandforce SSD that loses power during a write operation & leaves the storage in a state that it can't make sense of later).

      As difficult as it might be to transplant a donor cadaver's body onto another patient's head, at least there *is* a chance that it might work well enough to keep the recipient alive with some quality of life. IMHO, a brain-only transplant at this time is several steps *beyond* the realm of anything that even *pretends* to resemble sanity.

    6. Re:Yeah, sounds nuts alright. by mejustme · · Score: 1

      Yep, he's either delusional, or it's part of some huge scam.

      Couldn't it be both?

  11. Nightmarish revival. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now, let's just say all the problems of tissue damage are somehow magically resolved, you still end up with a horrifying ending. We lack the technology to properly integrate the vast majority of nerves, especially the spine. In the best case scenario, this guy would revive someone to live in a body they cannot control and possibly even be unable to sense anything at all. That's a fate worse than death.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Nightmarish revival. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The person might also suffer from massive migraines as the blood vessels in the brain are now attached to a circulatory system with different parameters. That silent pain!

    2. Re:Nightmarish revival. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      For what it's worth, they said much the same thing about heart transplants, liver transplants, lung transplants, etc etc. They said going to the Moon was impossible (and at the time, it was)...but technology won out.

      Yes, I agree a brain transplant is *vastly* more difficult than any of those things, but I would never say that it is flatly impossible. It's not possible today, but in 20 or 50 years? I wouldn't rule it out.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    3. Re:Nightmarish revival. by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 1

      Yes, and even if it works, I have the feeling that each brain somehow maps the visual cortex to its body's particular retinas to unscramble reality, and I doubt you can just whack two different retinas into the optic nerve and expect 4K resolution the next day... An adult brain may take forever to do same trick again...

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    4. Re:Nightmarish revival. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      Yes, I agree a brain transplant is *vastly* more difficult than any of those things, but I would never say that it is flatly impossible.

      Umm... that makes two of us?

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    5. Re: Nightmarish revival. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uh, no. That's not even close to accurate.

    6. Re:Nightmarish revival. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Umm... that makes two of us?

      No, not really. What I got from your comment was that it may be possible, but that it won't work in the end ("live in a body they cannot control and possibly even be unable to sense anything"), whereas what I'm saying is that I suspect it will eventually be possible, and have better results. Probably not 100% full functioning or control of the body, but enough to function well enough to take care of themselves and have a meaningful existence.

      I think the technology will eventually be able to integrate the majority of nerves, including the spine, ala some sort of interface software/hardware that would learn the signals coming from the brain and translate them into the correct signals needed for the arms, legs, bladder, etc.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    7. Re:Nightmarish revival. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

      What I got from your comment was that it may be possible, but that it won't work in the end

      You have inferred something that was not implied because I merely stated that "[w]e lack the technology to properly integrate the vast majority of nerves, especially the spine" but made no claims about the possibility of such a technology being developed in the future. I wrote, "this guy would revive someone to live in a body they cannot control" as a reference this particular doctor and his timetable.

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    8. Re: Nightmarish revival. by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 1

      Really? Every human's retina has the same layout of rods and cones and they connect to the exact same neurons through the optic nerve to the visual cortex?

      --
      Mostly random stuff.
    9. Re:Nightmarish revival. by MangoCats · · Score: 1

      The body will die as soon as life support (artificial heart and lungs) are removed - even the basic brainstem functions won't work.

    10. Re:Nightmarish revival. by MangoCats · · Score: 1

      Agreed, we cannot know the distant future.

      Unless this quack has access to serious amounts of unpublished tech, there's no way he will succeed within the next 10 years, much less the next 3 to 5.

    11. Re: Nightmarish revival. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Came here to just get to say this.

      Dude wakes up with one motherload of a massive "head splitting" migraine headache from hell, then dies.

      Whoops.

    12. Re:Nightmarish revival. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who the fuck are "they"?

    13. Re:Nightmarish revival. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      You're correct, I mistakenly took your comment as a general example instead of a specific reference.

      And you're probably right, the first X number of these will probably go badly, but the same has been true for almost any advanced medical procedure or transplant operation. But in the end, I think they'll have some success.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
    14. Re:Nightmarish revival. by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 1

      Agreed, we cannot know the distant future.

      I can. SPOILER ALERT: We all die and the Sun cooks the Earth into a giant dirty marble.

      Unless this quack has access to serious amounts of unpublished tech, there's no way he will succeed within the next 10 years, much less the next 3 to 5.

      It may be that his attempts (failures) lead to other doctors learning from his mistakes and trying the same thing with better results. For example, the first heart operations were horrific, but they in turn led to all sorts of advances.

      Like stents, for example. They used to have to crack your chest and gut you like a fish to put a stent in. The open-heart surgery itself used to kill more than a few patients, but it improved and was supplanted by less traumatic procedures. Now they implant a stent through a tiny incision in your arm or thigh and *boom* you're out of the hospital 12 hours later, right as rain, instead of spending a month or two recovering. Ask me how I know.

      The fact is that almost all medical technology is pretty horrible at first, but then it inevitably improves. That's just how it works.

      --
      Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  12. Pink Floyd: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There is someone in my head but it's not me

  13. Kiss my...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shiny Metal A..... :D

    1. Re:Kiss my...... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Welcome to the woooorld of tomoorrrroooooow!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Kiss my...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You can kiss the lower part of the back of the canister that is my body!

  14. Save us from prima donna surgeons by Harold+Halloway · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of all the outstanding medical problems in the world, affecting millions, perhaps billions of people, this is not one of them. This is simply a prima donna surgeon grandstanding with a medically-unlikely, ethically-dubious procedure of use to nearly no-one. Mind you, Italy seems to have a track record on ethically-dubious medical procedures and is unlikely to stop him.

    1. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suppose that's not as bad as being ethically dubious in literally every other category possible, like you, Amerikkkan. Ethically dubious elections, ethically dubious wars, ethically dubious torture methods...people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Amerikkkan.

    2. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Of all the outstanding medical problems in the world, affecting millions, perhaps billions of people, this is not one of them"

      Death definitely affects billions. Anything that even remotely resembles life extension is OK by me, but this approach won't work IMO.

    3. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      This isn't life extension. Someone has to die to have a donor body available. I think potential donors would rather that everyone work on extending their lives instead.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by TimSSG · · Score: 1
      So, a post by a Russian Anonymous Coward. The Russians are still trying to work the argument that the USA has ethically dubious elections. To make it seem that their elections are NOT unusual. Tim S.

      I suppose that's not as bad as being ethically dubious in literally every other category possible, like you, Amerikkkan. Ethically dubious elections, ethically dubious wars, ethically dubious torture methods...people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Amerikkkan.

    5. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nonsense. It's life extension for the recipient, just like a liver transplant is life extension for the recipient. We can clone anencephalic fetuses and grow them in a vat as well...

      PS: You aren't a woman either, you're just a mutilated man.

    6. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, the US is far far far from being the bastion of democracy that they claim (somewhat vocally) to be!

      http://www.inquisitr.com/376286/texas-threatens-to-arrest-un-backed-election-observers-liberals-fear-voter-supression/

      https://www.thenation.com/article/the-economist-just-downgraded-the-us-from-a-full-democracy-to-a-flawed-democracy/

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riley-waggaman/its-not-just-arizona-elec_b_9550670.html

    7. Re: Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Italy is ethically dubious in many ways.

    8. Re: Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might want to realize that the rest of the world considers your country - which I strongly suspect being the United States - "ethically dubious" in possibly every field that mankind has knowledge of.

    9. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mind you, Italy seems to have a track record on ethically-dubious

      ... Said somebody from a country - which I strongly suspect being the United States - that is universally considered the most "ethically dubious" entity on the planet, the biggest mass-murderer in history, the author of the two biggest terrorist attacks in history (Hiroshima and Nagasaki), a de facto ISIS ally in Syria, the birthplace of the two biggest worldwide recessions in modern history ('29 and '08), and which was originally born as a result of a tax cheaters' protest.

    10. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Continue licking the sweaty balls of your term-limited yet somehow dictator for life who kills and jails his opposition, shame-filled Russian.

    11. Re: Save us from prima donna surgeons by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      Who the fuck cares what Rest of World things? Most of them live in speech-controlled dictatorships where the only allowed viewpoint is hating the US, just like their dictators wish.

      They sure as shit love Americans when it comes to the latest cell phones or medical devices or drugs. God forbid the world rely on your broken-down, barely-functional kleptocracies.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    12. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How much does Putin pay a shill, anyway?

      Alternatively, doesn't your mom want you to finish the laundry down there?

    13. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, it turns out that ethical dubiousness increases exponentially with power.

      Humans are like that, doesn't matter which country they represent.

    14. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry for breaking to you what the rest of the world actually think of your country. I know that it's hard to hear it, because you're used to your obese, demented school teachers who always told you that you live in the best hole on the planet. And I'd love being paid by Putin for simply telling the truth, unfortunately I'm doing this for free, and I live about 5000 km far from Russia.

    15. Re: Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who the fuck cares what Rest of World things?

      You cannot even write in your own language. You must be the average demented US citizen who was told that he lived in the best country in the world by some obese, alcoholic school teacher who died of a heart attack at the age of 61.

    16. Re:Save us from prima donna surgeons by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wow, just wow. No wonder the USA is going to crap.

  15. Sure! Go ahead! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Sure! Go ahead!
    Transplant the Brain and all the knowledge and experience.
    But the Soul! the Soul resides in the heart!

    1. Re:Sure! Go ahead! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      go learn to troll properly LOL

    2. Re: Sure! Go ahead! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, no. He is not trolling, he has a point.

      Let's go off of the assumption that this works, they can reconnect nerve endings, yada yada.

      Who is this person?
      Body = Steve
      Brain = George

      Is this setient individual the person who belongs to the body? Do we call him Steve? Will we be calling him George?
      Or will he not come with an identity in which case Frank will do.

      If this procedure were successful I assume it would also flip upside down the religious community. Or maybe they will think Sergio is Jesus and the coming is upon us.

      Question: do people that are not spiritual believe in a soul?
      I have the body, mind, and soul thing drilled into me I recognize.

      But if the soul is energy - why the hell would it hang around in a freezer?
      (I always thought the soul was in the heart too - but rethinking this it doesn't make sense to be attached to any specific part [If we say the soul exists])

  16. There is one thing that comforts me by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    That it's not going to work. Just imagine for a moment it did.

    Ponder for just one moment the social impact of something like that.

    If I said you have a beautiful body would you hold it against me?
    No, but I'd be afraid for my life.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  17. Spock by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    Where is Spock's brain!

    1. Re:Spock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Brain? What is Brain?!"
      LOL

  18. Memories? by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 1

    So let's say this works (yeah right) and we have a fully (re-)functioning human at the end of the job. With a cryogenically frozen memory. Sure.
    Is there the slightest chance of that memory being intact? If the person awakens with no memory of anything at all, as we all have done already once in our lives, can that really be considered to be the same person?

    --
    No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
    1. Re:Memories? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Memories? More like nightmares. Trying placing a male brain in a female body and see what happens.

    2. Re:Memories? by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      You've read Time Enough For Love, right?

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    3. Re:Memories? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Memories? More like nightmares. Trying placing a male brain in a female body and see what happens.

      Once they discover multiple orgasms they'll never leave the bedroom. Like a rat that constantly presses a button to get the pleasure part of its brain stimulated (or some gamers), they will ignore everything else - even eating - and starve to death.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    4. Re:Memories? by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      Is there the slightest chance of that memory being intact?

      Of course. People's brains have been cooled so far that any activity stopped and retained their memory after warming. Most memories are "nonvolatile"; only short-term memories are volatile.

  19. They Saved Hitler's Brain! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now, hopefully, the doctor conducting these experiments will transplant the Hitler-brain into the skull of a jackass ...

  20. Any volunteers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I, for one, would be a little hesitant to give up my body so it could be inhabited by another brain. I see a donor problem.

  21. fake news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fake news. Similar story hit Internet a couple months ago and was widely discedited.

  22. "Plans to" by Jethro · · Score: 1

    When you say this guy "plans to" do anything, the correct wording should be "says he's going to".

    He's been saying he's going to do that head transplant for a while now, never providing ANY details on HOW he's going to do it. He's basically just talking.

    --


    In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
  23. Dr. Frederick Frankenstein by GrBear · · Score: 2

    Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, the first brain donor will be Abby Normal.

    1. Re: Dr. Frederick Frankenstein by AntronArgaiv · · Score: 1

      It's pronounced: "FRONK-en-shteen"!

  24. Dibs by vortex2.71 · · Score: 1

    My brain calls dibs on Brad Pitt's body! I would have gone with Nicolas Cage, but John Travolta got there first.

  25. bullshit by ooloorie · · Score: 1

    Any "cryogenically frozen brain" is mush: the crystallization of the water inside the brain destroys the tissue. Eventually, we may be able to work around that, but we aren't there yet.

    1. Re:bullshit by burtosis · · Score: 1

      Any "cryogenically frozen brain" is mush: the crystallization of the water inside the brain destroys the tissue. Eventually, we may be able to work around that, but we aren't there yet.

      Partially true. Slowly freezing tissues dosent damage them significantly, this we can do fairly well already. The hard bit is thawing them rapidly and uniformly to avoid cellular damage. This already can be done for very very small samples, but methods like this one hold promise for actually thawing large samples, like organs, with minimal damage.

    2. Re:bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Other way around. Slowly freezing tissues damages them, as it causes the formation of large ice crystals that rip apart cell membranes and organelles. The 'strawberry mush' effect. You can reduce the damage by freezing very rapidly, which leads to much smaller and less-damaging ice crystals. Still damaging, but not as much.

      If anyone ever does manage to make cryonics work, I imagine it would involve first administering cryoprotectant agents to your not-quite-dead-yet patient, then pumping something very cold through their circulatory system to freeze them as quickly as possible.

    3. Re:bullshit by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      Any "cryogenically frozen brain" is mush

      Partially true.

      No, not "partially true", absolutely and fully true. Any "cryogenically frozen brain" is damaged beyond healing or repair.

    4. Re:bullshit by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

      Any "cryogenically frozen brain" is damaged beyond healing or repair.

      So it will work fine on our overlords.

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    5. Re:bullshit by ooloorie · · Score: 1

      So it will work fine on our overlords.

      I don't have any "overlords".

      You, of course, have, but you only have yourself to blame for that.

  26. Before trying this with frozen brain. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Before trying this with frozen brain, why not just try the simpler exercise of bringing the recently dead back to life. Try it with some one dead for a few hours or so.

    1. Re:Before trying this with frozen brain. by fisted · · Score: 1

      Maybe because you'd kind of need a live brain for that?

      --
      CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
  27. What's the worse that could happen?? by Whooty+McWhooface · · Score: 0

    If the brain is too damaged, the new host body could run for President.

    And he would still not be the worst President in U.S. history....well, maybe a tie for The-President-who-shall-not-be-named.

  28. Check your Personal Loan Eligibility in Less than by musaddiqloanlending · · Score: 0

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  29. how it starts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    isnt this how the walking dead started?

    1. Re: how it starts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Spoiler alert... I'm still trying to catch up.

  30. Fun With Your New HEAD by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Thomas M. Disch's sci-fi story Fun With Your New HEAD (full text - about 1 page). No need for donor bodies.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  31. Oneness, and feeling out of place.. by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

    Since the brain and body grow as one unit all your life. They are as one. To me, I can't see putting a brain into a foreign organic body that has been tailored for another person's brain since birth.. So maybe a prosthetic body is a better choice since a prosthetic body can be "tuned" to that particular brain and feel more as "one" again.

  32. Brain and brain! by Bohnanza · · Score: 1

    What is brain?!?

    --

    -----

    Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.

  33. Spock's Brain by camperdave · · Score: 1

    We all know this isn't going to work. We can't even repair a severed spinal column with anything close to satisfactory results. What makes this guy think he can get a whole brain working again?

    --
    When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    1. Re:Spock's Brain by RespekMyAthorati · · Score: 1

      He doesn't.
      But he believes, correctly, that he can get all kinds of free PR by claiming he can.

  34. Buck Rogers...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'not in 100 years,' but three years at the latest,"

    Am I the only one that heard the beginning to the theme song for Buck Rogers?

      - Oz

  35. APRIL FOOLS! by martinfb · · Score: 1

    APRIL FOOLS!

    Oh! Wait! That was weeks ago!
    Did nobody tell BeauHD or Mr. Canavero?!

    So, let me get this straight:
    A frozen brain is to be inserted into a brain-dead body, and then expected to actually re-animate?!
    What of damage from being frozen?
    What about connecting nerves to paths to muscles?

    Sorry. I just can't wrap my - (ahem) - head around this one!

    --


    Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.