Cryogenically frozen brains

Cryogenically frozen brains will be ‘woken up’ and transplanted in donor bodies within three years, claims surgeon

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Dr Xiaoping Ren and Professor Sergio Canavero
Dr Xiaoping Ren and Professor Sergio Canavero, who believes a brain will be transplanted in the near future 

People who have had their brains cryogenically frozen could be ‘woken up’ within three years, a pioneering Italian surgeon has claimed.

Professor Sergio Canavero, Director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, is aiming to carry out the first human head transplant within 10 months and then wants to begin trials on brain transplants.

If the procedures are successful, he believes that frozen brains could be thawed and inserted into a donor body.

 Hundreds of people who are dying or paralysed have had their bodies or brains cryogenically preserved in the hope that medical science will be able to bring them back to life and cure their conditions.

Although many experts are sceptical that huge organs like the brain can be thawed without damage, Prof Canavero said he believes the first frozen head could soon be resurrected.

Prof Canavero was talking to the German magazine Ooom
Prof Canavero was talking to the German magazine Ooom

Speaking to the German magazine Ooom, he said he planned to awaken patients frozen by the Alcor Life Extension Foundation which is based in Arizona.

“We will try to bring the first of the company’s patients back to life, not in 100 years. As soon as the first human head transplant has taken place, i.e. no later than 2018, we will be able to attempt to reawaken the first frozen head,” said Prof Canavero.

“We are currently planning the world’s first brain transplant, and I consider it realistic that we will be ready in three years at the latest.

“A brain transplant has many advantages. First, there is barely any immune reaction,which means the problem of rejection does not exist.

 “The brain is, in a manner of speaking, a neutral organ. If you transplant a head with vessels, nerves, tendons and muscles, rejection can pose a massive problem. This is not the case with the brain.”
The head transplant gives us the first insight into whether there is an afterlife, a heaven, a hearafter.Professor Sergio Canavero

However Prof Canavero admitted that there could be physical and psychological problems which come with putting a brain in an entirely different body.

“What many be problematic, is 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.

“It creates a new situation that will certainly not be easy.”

However British scientists are skeptical about whether frozen organs as complex as the brain could ever be fully restored. When the High Court last year ruled that teenage girl could be cryogenically preserved,experts said the chances of revival were “infinitesimal”.

Clive Coen, Professor of Neuroscience at King’s College London, said: “The advocates of cryogenics are unable to cite any study in which a whole mammalian brain, let alone a whole mammalian body, has been resuscitated after storage in liquid nitrogen.

“Even if reviving that body were possible – it isn’t – all the complicated organs would have been wrecked from the start, and warming them up again would wreck them further.

“Irreversible damage is caused during the process of taking the mammalian brain into sub-zero temperatures. The wishful thinking engendered by cryogenics companies is irresponsible.”

Russian man set for world’s first head transplant

 Prof Canavero is working with a Chinese team of doctors led by Dr Xiaoping Ren, of Harbin Medical Centre who helped perform the first successful hand transplantation in the US. The technology to carry out the world’s first head transplant is expected to be in place by the end of the year, and then the team will then need to find a suitable donor body.
 Although Russian computer scientist Valery Spiridonov, who suffers spinal muscular atrophy, had volunteered to become the first head transplant patient, the team have since said the first trial is likely to be carried out on someone who is Chinese, because the chance of a Chinese donor body will be higher. Prof Canavero said a ‘high number’ of people had volunteered for the transplant.

Last year, the team announced they had successfully carried out a head transplant on a monkey, and released images from the procedure.

Last year scientists claimed to have carried out the first head transplant using a monkey 
Last year scientists claimed to have carried out the first head transplant using a monkey 

Prof Canavero said if the human head transplant works, it could have fundamental implications for human consciousness and even religion.

“In a few months we will sever a body from a head in an umprecedented medical procedure. In this phase, there is no life activity, not in the brain, not anywhere else in the body.

“If we bring this patient back to life we will receive the first real account of what actually happens after death. The head transplant gives us the first insight into whether there is an afterlife, a heaven, a hearafter.

“If we are able to prove that our brain does not create consciousness, religions will be swept away forever. They will no longer be necessary, as humans no longer need to be afraid of death.  We no longer need a Catholic Church, no Judaisim, and no Islam because religions in general will be obsolete.

“It will be a turning point in human history.”

Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk

 

Cryogenically Frozen Brains Will Be ‘Woken up’ and Transplanted in Donor Bodies Within Three Years, Neurosurgeon Claims

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IN BRIEF

After he attempts the world’s first human head transplant, neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero plans to attempt another world first: reawakening a brain that has been cryogenically frozen.

ONE WORLD’S FIRST AFTER ANOTHER

Given the remarkable advances that have been made in medicine in recent years, it’s hard to believe anything is still truly impossible. Artificial intelligences are diagnosing diseases, real-life cyborgs walk among us, and we’re finding promising new clues on our quest for immortality. Even more remarkable breakthroughs are on the way,  but if any one research team truly faces seemingly insurmountable odds, it has to be that of Professor Sergio Canavero, Director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group.

An Exponential Timeline of Organ Transplants

Four years ago, the acclaimed neurosurgeon announced his plan to complete the world’s first human head transplant, and this week, in an interview with OOOM, he confirmed that the controversial operation will take place within the next 10 months. According to Canavero, the operation will occur in Harbin, China, with Xiaoping Ren of Harbin Medical University leading the surgical team, and contrary to previous reports, a Chinese citizen, not Russian Valery Spiridonov, will be the recipient of a donor body.

However, the most remarkable news to come out of Canavero’s interview doesn’t have anything to do with the head transplant at all, but what he plans to do afterwards: “As soon as the first human head transplant has taken place, i.e., no later than in 2018, we will be able to attempt to reawaken the first frozen head.”

LIFE AFTER DEATH?

Canavero plans to remove the brain from a head that has been frozen at -196 degrees Celsius (-320 degrees Fahrenheit) and submerged in liquid nitrogen. He’ll then place the brain in a donor body in an attempt to effectively bring the patient back from the dead and, in the process, clear up humanity’s questions about the afterlife.

“If we bring this person back to life, we will receive the first real account of what actually happens after death,” said Canavero. “The head transplant gives us the first insight into whether there is an afterlife, a heaven, a hereafter, or whatever you may want to call it or whether death is simply a flicking off of the light switch and that’s it.”

Watch the video discussion. URL:

Clearly, this is the stuff of science fiction, and the medical community — and society at large — has every reason to be very skeptical of its potential for success.

“The advocates of cryogenics are unable to cite any study in which a whole mammalian brain … has been resuscitated after storage in liquid nitrogen,” Clive Coen, Professor of Neuroscience at King’s College London, told The Telegraph, adding, “Irreversible damage is caused during the process of taking the mammalian brain into sub-zero temperatures.”

Even if it did work and the frozen brain did “wake up,” there’s no telling what kinds of complications the patient could experience, from decreased mental faculties to unimaginable mental trauma. Though we do now live in a world in which the seemingly impossible is becoming possible, some experiments might be better suited for works of sci-fi than modern hospitals.