A team of scientists led by Sergio Canavero has published pictures showing fused neurons in the "halves" of the spinal cord of laboratory mice. These photographs are proof that scientists are close to realizing their main goal - a human head transplant.
According to Valery Spiridonov, an engineer from Vladimir and the first candidate for a head transplant, the pictures presented to the public are essentially scientific evidence of what scientists recognized as impossible a year and a half ago. This discovery opens up ample opportunities for scientists in the treatment of many diseases. The research is conducted publicly and current results are periodically made available to the public.
Recall that in February 2015, a surgeon from Italy Sergio Canavero made an announcement about the start of an ambitious project called HEAVEN / AHBR, the main goal of which was to transplant a volunteer's head into a donor body. To do this, it is supposed to connect the brain and spinal cord using a special procedure called the "GEMINI protocol".
The first to respond to the call of the Italian surgeon was a programmer from Russia Valery Spiridonov, who is confined to a wheelchair due to muscle dystrophy. This person suffers from a condition known as Werdnig-Hoffmann syndrome, a severe genetic disorder that gradually prevents the person from moving.
Pictures of growing neurons in a severed mouse spinal cord
Photo: Kim et al. / Neural Regen Res 12 (1): 149-150
Neurosurgeons are divided over the possibility of a head transplant. Some of them are sure that such a possibility is in principle not excluded, although one cannot vouch for the success of the operation. Others, on the other hand, consider the whole project a gamble that will certainly end in failure.
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To date, Canavero, along with his colleagues, announced that their team has managed to get one step closer to the operation. They published the first images that show the fusion of neurons in the spinal cord of rodents. The spinal cord was cut with a special knife, which scientists demonstrated at the end of last year.
A group of scientists led by Canavero used a special compound based on polyethylene glycol for fusion of neurons, which, according to preliminary experiments on nerve cell cultures, promotes healing of nerve tissue wounds. By the way, the same substance was used in experiments to restore the mobility of mice, conducted by a colleague and like-minded person of Canavero Ren Xiaotin.
This experiment was carried out in Seoul, in the scientific laboratories of Konkuk University. In the course of the experiment, scientists completely cut the spinal cord of mice - similar to how it should happen with a head transplant. Four weeks later, when the rodents gradually began to regain mobility, the scientists euthanized the animals and took pictures of the incision using a transmission electron microscope.
The photographs confirmed that new nerve endings began to grow through the scars in the spinal cord. This confirmed that the technique of the Italian surgeon works at least partially.
As Canavero himself notes, the findings suggest that if the spinal cord is cut cleanly, it can be reconnected, forcing neurons to grow at the border between its halves. This, therefore, refutes the hypothesis that this kind of procedure is impossible, which scientists have been talking about for decades.