First Successful Monkey Head Transplant Reportedly Performed in China

First Successful Monkey Head Transplant Reportedly Performed in China
Jan 22, 2016 By eChinacities.com

Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero claims that Chinese researchers have successfully performed a head transplant on a monkey. Canavero plans to attempt a human head transplant in the future, and says that after working with Chinese and South Korean research teams his plan is closer than ever.

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that Canavero claims that Ren Xiaoping from Harbin Medical University performed a successful head transplant on a monkey. The team was able to connect the blood supply between the head and new body, but not the spinal cord, leaving the monkey paralyzed from the neck down. It is not known if the monkey felt pain in its new body after the surgery.

The monkey was only kept alive for 20 hours after the operation for ethical reasons. Canavero said that experiment shows that if the head is cooled to -15℃ before the surgery, the monkey will survive and not experience brain damage. The experiment will be published in the scientific journal CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics. 

The New Scientist wrote that they had seen images and videos of some of the experiments that Canavero describes but are unable to verify them.

Canavero and Ren plan to the first human head transplant in the end of next year in Russia. The candidate for the experiment is Russian scientists Valery Spiridonov who suffers from spinal muscular atrophy.

Source: wenxuecity.com

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Keywords: human head transplant monkey head transplant Sergio Canavero

5 Comments

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hunny797

Not a science expert myself, but wouldn't you need two volunteers for the experiment?

Jan 25, 2016 14:50 Report Abuse

carlstar

only kept alive for 20 hours for ethical reasons... So it is ethical to kill the monkey so it is no more, without life, an ex monkey? I would ethically want to be alive for more than 20 hours. Ethics with Chinese characteristics. Sounds like that guy upsetting china with nazi comparison was kind of right. Future castle yao quaistein!

Jan 23, 2016 13:47 Report Abuse

Benjamin321

Haha I am not sure I would want to be alive if my head was put on someone else's body. It is certainly an ethical "something" with Chinese characteristics.

Jan 24, 2016 06:53 Report Abuse

mike168229

Previously done in the dark days of the Soviet Union.

Jan 23, 2016 11:16 Report Abuse

Guest593844

This doesn't sound like it worked lol. The monkey is dead. And why would there not be better images from such a groundbreaking scientific event? I'm confused.

Jan 23, 2016 02:10 Report Abuse