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Is a head transplant really a thing? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry. There's stuff you
0:17
Speaker 1: should know, and it's stuff you should know about something
0:22
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with the sun. Are you relieved? Yes?
0:28
Speaker 1: Are you uh suffering post traumatic podcast disorder a little bit? Yeah?
0:34
Speaker 1: But but overall I'm feeling good about this. Okay, about
0:38
Speaker 1: this one coming up? Yeah, fin as strong? Yeah? What
0:42
Speaker 1: did Jerry say, always do the suck on in first? Yeah? Well,
0:46
Speaker 1: so far, so good. Yep. It just remains to be
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Speaker 1: seen whether this one's great. But I don't see how
0:52
Speaker 1: it could be worse than the Aurora one. Well, this
0:55
Speaker 1: one about human head transplants. UM. After I picked it,
1:00
Speaker 1: I thought, gee, should we even be covering this, because well,
1:04
Speaker 1: if you read opinion pieces about this potential head transplant surgery,
1:11
Speaker 1: which we'll get to, a lot of people are saying like,
1:15
Speaker 1: this is this is bad, this is junk science, this
1:19
Speaker 1: is dangerous medicine, and you shouldn't even be talking about
1:22
Speaker 1: this stuff, right. But then I read an article in
1:25
Speaker 1: The Atlantic, um, and it's The Atlantic, and I was like,
1:30
Speaker 1: you know what, if they're covering this, uh, then we
1:33
Speaker 1: should cover it too. And people probably said the same
1:35
Speaker 1: thing about kidney transplants and heart transplants and skin graphs.
1:39
Speaker 1: You know, oh yeah, for sure. But I think the
1:42
Speaker 1: big difference with this is and I think this is
1:44
Speaker 1: what the medical and bioethical community has a problem with.
1:49
Speaker 1: There's this one maverick possibly lunatic scientist surgeon who was
1:56
Speaker 1: plowing ahead with this, Sir dree with the rest of
2:03
Speaker 1: the medical field worldwide basically saying stop, stop, like you
2:07
Speaker 1: can't do this. This is We're not there yet, and
2:11
Speaker 1: he's saying, nope, we're there. I've even got somebody who's
2:15
Speaker 1: willing to do this. We're gonna give it a shot. Well, yes, yes,
2:19
Speaker 1: and no. He's a lot of that is in this
2:23
Speaker 1: Atlantic article really kind of spells everything out. A lot
2:27
Speaker 1: of that is, um bravado out of this dude. And
2:33
Speaker 1: there is probably no way that he's going to do
2:36
Speaker 1: this in December of this year, like he said he is. Yeah,
2:39
Speaker 1: he's said that he is going to go ahead with
2:42
Speaker 1: the surgery, at least officially, is what he's saying. In
2:44
Speaker 1: December of two thousand and seventeen. That's not gonna happen. Specifically,
2:48
Speaker 1: he's going to do it with a Russian computer engineer
2:53
Speaker 1: named Valerie Spirit and off, and um, that may not
2:57
Speaker 1: happen with him. He see he has a spirit enough,
3:01
Speaker 1: has something called word nig Hoffman disease, which is a
3:04
Speaker 1: spinal spinal muscular dystrophy. And um, has he backed out
3:11
Speaker 1: now because he seemed pretty gung ho and everything I saw. No,
3:14
Speaker 1: he's gung ho, but he is on record of saying like,
3:17
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a part of an expensive
3:22
Speaker 1: euthanasia uh whatever procedure. Yeah, well that makes sense. I mean,
3:28
Speaker 1: the whole reason he wants to do this is to
3:31
Speaker 1: to get better, to improve his lot. He's wheelchair bound
3:34
Speaker 1: and his his muscles are withering away. Uh, and he's
3:37
Speaker 1: thirty and he he wants to be mobile again. But yeah,
3:41
Speaker 1: I would imagine, Yeah, he doesn't want to do this
3:46
Speaker 1: just to die, right, So he's kind of um and
3:50
Speaker 1: what we're talking about, I guess we should just go ahead.
3:52
Speaker 1: And if people are severely confused, it's called the human
3:55
Speaker 1: head transplant, but what it really is is a human
3:59
Speaker 1: body trans plant. Because what you're doing is is you're
4:02
Speaker 1: taking a person in this case, this Russian gentleman who
4:08
Speaker 1: has a fully functioning brain and from the neck up
4:13
Speaker 1: is fine, but his body is wasting away. And one
4:17
Speaker 1: they get to the point where they can do the surgery,
4:19
Speaker 1: they're going to get a body from a recently very
4:23
Speaker 1: recently deceased person or or soon to be deceased person. Yeah.
4:27
Speaker 1: They would just need to be brain dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly,
4:31
Speaker 1: Um and move the heads, which would in turn give
4:37
Speaker 1: what's his name Valerie a new body. Yes, which is
4:42
Speaker 1: is radical of a thing as you could ever imagine.
4:45
Speaker 1: There is no more radical medical procedure as we currently
4:50
Speaker 1: stand right now, No, no chance, not even close. And
4:54
Speaker 1: it's not like they're even swapping the heads. The donor's
4:57
Speaker 1: head just gets thrown away well in a bucket, Yeah,
5:02
Speaker 1: I guess for for a little chuck to find. Yeah,
5:06
Speaker 1: I didn't think about that, but um they're yeah, you
5:08
Speaker 1: don't put it back on. No, there's no point in it.
5:12
Speaker 1: So this this head transplant, our body transplant, depending on
5:17
Speaker 1: your perspective the whole idea. Obviously, it's kind of an
5:20
Speaker 1: old idea, like it goes back to Frankenstein, and you
5:24
Speaker 1: can make a case that Frankenstein is based on even
5:27
Speaker 1: earlier stuff like creating a gollum from clay, that kind
5:31
Speaker 1: of stuff. Um, But the idea is not new, but
5:37
Speaker 1: the idea that it could actually be done is fairly new. Um.
5:42
Speaker 1: The this surgeon who's planning on carrying it out, Dr
5:46
Speaker 1: Sergio uh kind of arrow. He published an article in
5:51
Speaker 1: two thousand thirteen and said here's how I plan to
5:56
Speaker 1: do this, and we'll get to that in a minute.
5:58
Speaker 1: But in the article that he wrote, the journal article
6:01
Speaker 1: he wrote laying out how the surgery could be done.
6:04
Speaker 1: One of the first things he does a site um
6:07
Speaker 1: similar surgeries that were carried out on animals. Yeah, which
6:11
Speaker 1: we've covered these before and um, past episodes I think
6:16
Speaker 1: on like I think one of them was a top
6:19
Speaker 1: ten list like awful medical procedures or something I can't remember.
6:25
Speaker 1: But this one one case specifically that stands out. There
6:29
Speaker 1: was a Russian doctor name of Vladimir Demikoff, and he
6:36
Speaker 1: very famously grafted the head and four legs of one
6:41
Speaker 1: dog onto another dog. Um, And apparently the both of
6:46
Speaker 1: the heads could smell and hear and see and swallow
6:50
Speaker 1: and scream and lived. Um. I think he did this
6:56
Speaker 1: a few times, and the biggest success was one of
6:59
Speaker 1: these dogs live for twenty nine days, right, which is actually,
7:04
Speaker 1: from what I'm seeing, that's a very very long time. Um.
7:08
Speaker 1: And this is at a time in the what you say, Um,
7:13
Speaker 1: this is a time when the only successful transplants that
7:17
Speaker 1: had been carried out in humans were bone blood vessels
7:19
Speaker 1: and corneas. They've never done a major organ transplantet And
7:24
Speaker 1: this guy's getting dogs with grafted heads, two heads to
7:27
Speaker 1: live for twenty nine days. So it was a big deal.
7:30
Speaker 1: But even still, and I'm sure at the time people
7:32
Speaker 1: were like, that's pretty tasteless, um when looking back historically,
7:38
Speaker 1: like why it don't do that? Stop? I wish that
7:41
Speaker 1: had never happened. What were you doing? And apparently Demikov's
7:45
Speaker 1: ultimate goal was to just basically get transplants down and
7:50
Speaker 1: create a bank of organs, an oregan bank, to where
7:53
Speaker 1: if you need a transplant, you could get any transplant
7:56
Speaker 1: you needed any time. Um, transplants would just be so
8:00
Speaker 1: teen And he saw this as a means to to
8:03
Speaker 1: an end learning techniques, because apparently grafting dogs together would
8:09
Speaker 1: help you with that, right, which I mean, it makes
8:13
Speaker 1: makes a case. Yeah, he wasn't a mad scientist. He
8:15
Speaker 1: was trying to advance medicine. Uh So in nineteen seventy
8:19
Speaker 1: that was there a notice. There's just been really big
8:22
Speaker 1: gaps and a lot of this stuff for good reason,
8:24
Speaker 1: I guess. Um. But in nineteen seventy and right here
8:27
Speaker 1: in the United States, uh, there was a recus monkey
8:31
Speaker 1: in Cleveland and one Dr Robert White performed ahead transplant
8:36
Speaker 1: and the monkey survived neurologically for thirty six hours. But
8:41
Speaker 1: I believe he never actually connected the spinal cord. No, no,
8:48
Speaker 1: And that's the big the biggest hurdle right now. Yeah,
8:52
Speaker 1: it was and still is so so Dr White, I mean, still,
8:56
Speaker 1: this is pretty significant. He transplanted ahead and from one
9:00
Speaker 1: monkey to another and managed to um connect the the
9:06
Speaker 1: major veins and arteries um and resuscitated, managed to resuscitate
9:11
Speaker 1: the monkey um and it lived for a few days.
9:16
Speaker 1: But um, apparently it was just an awful thing, even
9:21
Speaker 1: even at the time. One of the scientists that was
9:23
Speaker 1: there who's actually become um Dr Cannavero, the surgeon who
9:27
Speaker 1: wants to do the human head transplant. This this other
9:30
Speaker 1: guy has become one of his greatest and most outspoken
9:32
Speaker 1: public critics. Um, he was there at the time when
9:36
Speaker 1: this this um experiment in nineteen seventy was carried out,
9:39
Speaker 1: and he said, this is this is a terrible thing
9:41
Speaker 1: to do, even to a monkey. Said, we tried to
9:44
Speaker 1: feed it. The first time we fed it, the food
9:47
Speaker 1: spilled out of its tricky onto the floor. Um, it
9:51
Speaker 1: was just an awful thing. And this guy is really
9:54
Speaker 1: beating the drum to like stop Dr Cannavero from from
9:57
Speaker 1: carrying this out because he was there saying where he
10:00
Speaker 1: saw that, he saw the monkey experiments. But Canavero is saying,
10:05
Speaker 1: you can say that all you want, all the food
10:07
Speaker 1: could have spilled that on the floor, doesn't matter because
10:10
Speaker 1: it was successful. The monkey was revived for three days.
10:15
Speaker 1: But everybody agrees there was there. They didn't connect the
10:20
Speaker 1: spinal column, and that's the big hurdle. That's one of
10:22
Speaker 1: the biggest unknowns with the actual head transplant. Yeah, and
10:26
Speaker 1: more recently in the past couple of years, in fact,
10:30
Speaker 1: I think just last year, there's a surgeon who's actually
10:34
Speaker 1: partnered up with the Italian doctor named um Gialping wren
10:41
Speaker 1: Uh and he's a surgeon in Harbin, China who has
10:44
Speaker 1: successfully done this on mice. Yeah, he's also partnered with
10:48
Speaker 1: another UM researcher at khon Kook University in Soul, Korea, Korea,
10:54
Speaker 1: who's also carrying these these some stuff out on mice.
10:58
Speaker 1: And Canavero's based clee using these studies to say, hey,
11:03
Speaker 1: this is possible, but apparently the scientific community is saying
11:08
Speaker 1: this is these are not necessarily good studies. Well and
11:11
Speaker 1: Wren Dr Wren in China, like before not gather, he
11:15
Speaker 1: is UM. He's the one that's saying like, let's just
11:18
Speaker 1: slow our role here, UM and do this if we
11:23
Speaker 1: ever try to do it, do it when we really
11:25
Speaker 1: think we can. Like I've done a monkey, I've done
11:27
Speaker 1: some mice. Um, we're not ready to do it human yet.
11:32
Speaker 1: So let's just not talk about um. Valerie in December
11:36
Speaker 1: of and please stop doing TED talks and going on
11:42
Speaker 1: news programs and just shut up for a little while.
11:46
Speaker 1: But it doesn't sound like that since Sergio Cannaverro's d
11:49
Speaker 1: n A. No, he is very brash sort of he's
11:55
Speaker 1: he they said in this article. He uses he says
11:57
Speaker 1: bread instead of money, like hey, if I can't raise
12:00
Speaker 1: the money, I'll go to uh, someone like Zuckerberg and
12:04
Speaker 1: get the bread to do this. It says here in
12:07
Speaker 1: the Atlantic article. He says Cannabaro tends to make blowhard
12:10
Speaker 1: statements that denigrate his critics, like this, I'm into jiu jitsu.
12:16
Speaker 1: Jiu jitsu. He told me so, I have the martial
12:18
Speaker 1: arts mind that you need to tackle all the morons
12:20
Speaker 1: that come with idiotic questions. He's not doing himself any favors. Yeah,
12:24
Speaker 1: I don't think he sees it like that from what
12:26
Speaker 1: I'm seeing, Like there's this I saw um where I
12:29
Speaker 1: get all my news, the Daily Mail. I saw a
12:32
Speaker 1: Daily Mail article on him and his procedure, and it
12:36
Speaker 1: has a photo shoot of him wearing scrubs with a
12:41
Speaker 1: man's head on a platter. Like doctors don't do that.
12:46
Speaker 1: They don't do photo shoots like that. They are not
12:48
Speaker 1: trying to court controversy. Like, yes, if you're a surgeon
12:52
Speaker 1: like you, you have some part of your fiber is
12:55
Speaker 1: pretty cocky and arrogant, maybe even have a God complex.
12:59
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of required typically with um, with
13:03
Speaker 1: that field that profession. Right, this guy is exponentially beyond
13:08
Speaker 1: anything that's even high end for a normal surgeon as
13:12
Speaker 1: far as egotism and um and blow hardness goes. Most
13:17
Speaker 1: of them don't don't boast about jiu jitsu publicly. No. Uh.
13:22
Speaker 1: In fact, the most scientists and doctors, um, most don't
13:26
Speaker 1: like him at all. They said, this is one quote. Uh.
13:28
Speaker 1: He glibly glides past major problems with his human centipede
13:33
Speaker 1: level medical horror show. His plan is insane, like James
13:37
Speaker 1: Bond villain, insane and will amount to an elaborate act
13:41
Speaker 1: of slow torture and murder. So I think he's partially
13:47
Speaker 1: obviously really like that as a dude. But they don't
13:50
Speaker 1: have the money it takes. They don't have the bread,
13:53
Speaker 1: like a hundred million dollars to do this, And I
13:54
Speaker 1: think he thinks all this media attention is what is
13:58
Speaker 1: going to get him the bread to carry out this operation.
14:01
Speaker 1: You're gonna call it bread from now on. Just through
14:04
Speaker 1: this show, did you see a hundred million dollars? And
14:07
Speaker 1: most I saw his thirteen million. Oh, I mean, I've
14:10
Speaker 1: seen it all over the place, that's the thing I've seen.
14:12
Speaker 1: It takes anywhere from thirty doctors to a hundred doctors
14:16
Speaker 1: to assist in this, which is one of the other
14:18
Speaker 1: big problems is getting up to a hundred legit doctors
14:22
Speaker 1: that will do this, right, you know, this guy's like
14:26
Speaker 1: walking clickbait. So let's take a break, man, and then
14:31
Speaker 1: we'll come back and we'll we'll we'll tell all the
14:34
Speaker 1: grizzly details of his plan. M hm alright, Chuck. So
15:00
Speaker 1: back in two thousand thirteen, the Sergio Canavera hit the
15:03
Speaker 1: scene in a journal. Um, oh, what's the journal called
15:09
Speaker 1: Surgical Neurology International. It's an open source journal. Yeah, he's
15:13
Speaker 1: no quack. We should point out he's been published a lot,
15:15
Speaker 1: and he's a legit surgeon, right, Like, he obviously knows
15:18
Speaker 1: what he's talking about. It's just the gamble that he's
15:21
Speaker 1: taking is so so obviously stacked against him that you
15:27
Speaker 1: that I think most people would say you would have
15:29
Speaker 1: to be insane to actually do it, or so reckless
15:33
Speaker 1: and indifferent to the fate of your patient that you
15:36
Speaker 1: shouldn't be practicing medicine in the first place. Yeah, because
15:39
Speaker 1: almost the doctors that they've talked to said this will
15:44
Speaker 1: end in this man's death. Yeah, like, like think about this.
15:47
Speaker 1: They're working on rats. Rats have the best outcome of
15:51
Speaker 1: any animal so far, and there they have like thirty
15:56
Speaker 1: to fifty survival rate among rats. But even that just
16:00
Speaker 1: means that survived no more than one day after having
16:05
Speaker 1: their head transplanted. They died from the surgery one way
16:08
Speaker 1: or another. It's just that survival rate means that they
16:11
Speaker 1: were managed to be revived after the surgery. It doesn't
16:15
Speaker 1: mean that they went on to live a healthy life
16:17
Speaker 1: and bounce their grandchildren on their knee. They died within
16:20
Speaker 1: a day. Yeah, there's no way that it wouldn't kill
16:23
Speaker 1: a human being. Yeah, I mean, even if the guy survived,
16:26
Speaker 1: the likelihood of him being like, well I got my
16:29
Speaker 1: new body now is is like zero. Watch me bench this.
16:34
Speaker 1: Although he's uh, Cannavero said he has a nine chance
16:38
Speaker 1: of living a regular life, and Dr Wrenn in China
16:41
Speaker 1: saying no, he doesn't quit saying that. You know, yeah,
16:46
Speaker 1: this guy is he's exactly the kind of surgeon for
16:49
Speaker 1: this age, isn't he He really is actually us nineties
16:53
Speaker 1: chance to have a normal life. Where'd you get that? Well,
16:56
Speaker 1: it just sounds good that, yeah, he fits with the times.
17:02
Speaker 1: So back in two thirteen, in that journal Surgical Neurology International, UM,
17:07
Speaker 1: Canavero published basically a step by step outline of how
17:12
Speaker 1: this um, this surgery would go down, and it's it's
17:15
Speaker 1: not super in depth, it's just it's basically an overview,
17:20
Speaker 1: but it hits, you know, most of the salient points.
17:24
Speaker 1: And he's basically gone and taking different surgeries and assemble
17:30
Speaker 1: them into this one massive surgery that would be a
17:35
Speaker 1: head transplant from one donor to the next, or one
17:38
Speaker 1: donor to the recipient. Yeah, and I think even doctors say,
17:41
Speaker 1: this isn't like, you know, he's not crazy, Like when
17:46
Speaker 1: you look at it, it's it all kind of makes sense.
17:49
Speaker 1: They're just saying like it's it's not gonna work, and
17:53
Speaker 1: it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, totally. And the big stumbling
17:55
Speaker 1: block is going to be the spinal cord because basically
17:57
Speaker 1: everything else he's he's all these other urgeri that is
18:00
Speaker 1: cobbling together are proven surgeries, like they can be done.
18:05
Speaker 1: It's that's that connecting the spinal cord um. That's that's
18:11
Speaker 1: the biggest obstacle during the surgery. All right, should we
18:14
Speaker 1: go through this thing? But so the first thing you
18:17
Speaker 1: do is you need two teams, uh, two surgery teams obviously,
18:22
Speaker 1: because you have two bodies in there in the same
18:25
Speaker 1: operating theater. Yeah, you there's got to be a very
18:28
Speaker 1: quick I think they said the heads have to be
18:30
Speaker 1: or the head has to be reattached in like under
18:33
Speaker 1: an hour to have any chance, right, but the spinal
18:36
Speaker 1: columns have to be reattached within less than two minutes.
18:41
Speaker 1: But you have an hour for the whole procedure from
18:44
Speaker 1: from the moment the heads are cut off. So the
18:47
Speaker 1: first step, Chuck, is remember how we had UM. We
18:50
Speaker 1: did an episode on therapeutic hypothermia. So they're they plan
18:56
Speaker 1: to use therapeutic hypothermia where they cool the head of
19:00
Speaker 1: the recipient down to like fifty degrees, which you know
19:05
Speaker 1: normally it's point six degrees and at that temperature um
19:10
Speaker 1: metabolism slows tremendously. So since you have fewer processes going
19:16
Speaker 1: on into the cells, you have less of a need
19:19
Speaker 1: for oxygen, which is good because you're cutting the head
19:21
Speaker 1: off of the body and oxygen can be hard to
19:24
Speaker 1: come by. So by um cooling the head down to
19:28
Speaker 1: fifty I think fifty four degrees ferret height, which is
19:31
Speaker 1: I believed ten degrees celsius um, the metabolism slows down
19:37
Speaker 1: enough that you're buying yourself that hour. Remember there's that
19:40
Speaker 1: our time limit. That's because you've cooled down the head,
19:43
Speaker 1: slowing the metabolism, and um, that gives you that hour
19:47
Speaker 1: to carry out the surgery. So you're cooling the head
19:50
Speaker 1: on the recipient, and then you're cooling the spinal column
19:54
Speaker 1: to the same temperature on the donor, right, So uh,
19:59
Speaker 1: everyone's gotten cooled down to that point. The recipient is
20:02
Speaker 1: gonna be lying down at first, and then later like
20:05
Speaker 1: during the surgery and then during recovery and everything. Um,
20:08
Speaker 1: he's going to be in a seated position. Um, because
20:12
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess that just makes sense. With gravity,
20:16
Speaker 1: you'd want to be seated, doesn't that make sense? I
20:19
Speaker 1: think it makes the surgery easier for the surgeons too well,
20:23
Speaker 1: but during recovery too, Like they're not gonna lay him
20:25
Speaker 1: back down. I don't think I'll ever be allowed to
20:28
Speaker 1: lay down again. Maybe not so. Uh. They make the
20:31
Speaker 1: incisions at each neck, they expose arteries, the spine, the
20:36
Speaker 1: jugular veins. UM. Obviously they're gonna clamp everything off. Um.
20:41
Speaker 1: They color code all the muscles um, which sounds funny,
20:46
Speaker 1: but it's actually pretty smart. I guess. Um, just like
20:50
Speaker 1: wires in a in a circuit would be color coded. Uh,
20:53
Speaker 1: they want everything hooked back up to the right thing,
20:56
Speaker 1: so there color coding muscles and they leave the spinal
20:59
Speaker 1: cord for the last thing. Yeah, this is the this
21:03
Speaker 1: this is the very very tricky part here. This is
21:06
Speaker 1: where everybody's like, Okay, you're crazy if you try this.
21:09
Speaker 1: But Dr Cannavero says, if you cut the spines the
21:15
Speaker 1: spinal columns of each of the um the donor and
21:19
Speaker 1: the recipient with a sharp enough blade, and you make
21:23
Speaker 1: a surgical cut, you should be able to promote regeneration
21:29
Speaker 1: of those nerves that you're cutting, UM when you reattach
21:33
Speaker 1: them that if if the cut is precise enough, the
21:36
Speaker 1: damage that's normally associated with a surgical sever or not
21:42
Speaker 1: a surgical sever, spinal sever from like some sort of
21:45
Speaker 1: trauma injury, UM, you won't have all the attendant like
21:49
Speaker 1: scarification and inflammation that you would from that if you're
21:53
Speaker 1: doing it surgically with surgical precision. That's a big that's
21:58
Speaker 1: a big thing that he's saying. Yeah, that's one of
22:00
Speaker 1: the biggest um stumbling blocks to getting these nerves to
22:04
Speaker 1: reconnect is the second they're cut, they're gonna start to
22:07
Speaker 1: form scar tissue. Which makes it much harder to reattach.
22:11
Speaker 1: So in the case of these mice and China, they
22:15
Speaker 1: use a one thousand dollar scalpel with a diamond blade
22:18
Speaker 1: so thin that it's transparent and so, Um, this is
22:23
Speaker 1: too small obviously for this procedure, but they're gonna get
22:26
Speaker 1: a scalpel like that big enough to you know, to
22:30
Speaker 1: work on a human. Right. So here's actually will just
22:34
Speaker 1: say a lot of the things that are that people
22:37
Speaker 1: object to with this. But but what what kind of
22:40
Speaker 1: arrows saying? Um, is that with this cut when you
22:46
Speaker 1: when you take the spines, are we at the head yet?
22:50
Speaker 1: Have we moved the head? Um? Well, yeah, we've We've
22:54
Speaker 1: cut the head and there people should rest easy knowing
22:56
Speaker 1: they're not just picking the head up. Apparently, it's gonna
22:59
Speaker 1: be transferred on a on a specially built crane with
23:02
Speaker 1: vel grow straps. And the crane is actually kind of
23:06
Speaker 1: clever too because it can just hold it aloft above
23:10
Speaker 1: the donor body, right, So that allows for the surgeons
23:15
Speaker 1: to connect everything again in comfort without having to get
23:19
Speaker 1: into any weird positions or whatever. Um, with the floating
23:22
Speaker 1: head staring at them. Yeah, the floating head hanging over
23:25
Speaker 1: the seated, headless body. Man, this is the point that
23:29
Speaker 1: we're right now. So one of the first things they'll do, um, well,
23:33
Speaker 1: the first thing that they're doing, because remember you have
23:35
Speaker 1: less than two minutes between when you cut the spinal
23:38
Speaker 1: column and when you reattach it um. So the first
23:42
Speaker 1: thing they're gonna do is attach the spinal column in
23:46
Speaker 1: the recipient's head and the spinal column in the donor's body.
23:51
Speaker 1: And they're gonna put this stuff in that apparently is
23:54
Speaker 1: made of magic, and it's called PEG polyethylene glycol glue,
24:00
Speaker 1: a medical surgical glue that supposedly work some some wonders
24:05
Speaker 1: on the body. Yeah, it is like magic, and I
24:09
Speaker 1: don't understand how it works. I'm not going to pretend
24:12
Speaker 1: on this show. But um in China with these mice, uh,
24:17
Speaker 1: before they did the transplant, they would literally just take
24:20
Speaker 1: this blade. They would sever the spinal cord of this
24:22
Speaker 1: poor little mouse and then they would take it. That's
24:26
Speaker 1: apparently it looks like watered down scotch and they would, uh,
24:30
Speaker 1: it's like an amber fluid, and they would take a
24:31
Speaker 1: drop of it, drop it on that little spinal column,
24:35
Speaker 1: stitch the mouse up, and then the mouse would walk again. Yeah,
24:40
Speaker 1: that's that's something that they were reporting from those that
24:43
Speaker 1: these mice had their spinal columns totally severed and then
24:47
Speaker 1: reattached glued together with pilot polyethylene glycol. And yeah, within
24:52
Speaker 1: what like three weeks I think, or a couple of weeks,
24:55
Speaker 1: the mice were walking again. This one was two days.
24:59
Speaker 1: It was the do that took three weeks. Yeah, and
25:01
Speaker 1: it said the mouse did not walk perfectly. Its back
25:04
Speaker 1: legs lurched at times. But what compared to a control mouse. Uh, yeah,
25:10
Speaker 1: the control mouse could couldn't walk. It would just pull
25:13
Speaker 1: the back legs behind itself. So, um, this this polyethylene glycol, right,
25:18
Speaker 1: Apparently what it does is it it's hydrophilic and it
25:23
Speaker 1: attracts fats to it, so it'll go in you you
25:28
Speaker 1: squirt some into like the the incision or the gap
25:32
Speaker 1: between the two spinal columns, and allegedly what it will
25:36
Speaker 1: do is attract these damaged cells and basically fuse them together.
25:41
Speaker 1: They fused together and regenerate basically into cells. That's one
25:46
Speaker 1: thing it does. And then there's this this pig that's
25:51
Speaker 1: um kind of enhanced. I guess that these researchers at
25:56
Speaker 1: RICE University are coming up what they call it Texas
25:58
Speaker 1: peg um that has graphene nano spirals in it, and
26:05
Speaker 1: those serve as basically a structure for the cells to
26:08
Speaker 1: grow along. And the whole point of using PEG here,
26:11
Speaker 1: aside from the fact that it can help cells repair
26:15
Speaker 1: and regenerate, is that when Cannavaro cuts the spinal column,
26:20
Speaker 1: he will have severed these nerves and axons, the white
26:25
Speaker 1: matter that that transmit electricity through the body from the
26:28
Speaker 1: brain and vice versa UM and they need to reattach
26:32
Speaker 1: and if they don't touch one another, UM, they're gonna
26:36
Speaker 1: grow past one another and the the electrical transmission will
26:40
Speaker 1: never be able to take place. He's saying if you
26:43
Speaker 1: use PEG, And then these Texas researchers are saying, if
26:45
Speaker 1: you use Texas peg, these nano structures will provide a
26:49
Speaker 1: structure for the um neurons that or the axons to
26:53
Speaker 1: grow along, and they will reconnect and regrow and the
26:57
Speaker 1: person should be able to have electrical hasmission through their
27:00
Speaker 1: nerves again on the spinal column. This is the most
27:04
Speaker 1: controversial point so far. Yeah, and they're also gonna have
27:07
Speaker 1: um electrical paddles on hand, because apparently burst of electricity
27:13
Speaker 1: can help re establish that communication when you've severed the
27:16
Speaker 1: spinal cord. So do you want to take a break
27:19
Speaker 1: right now and uh come back and finish up with
27:23
Speaker 1: this gruesome operation right after this? M alright, So we
27:48
Speaker 1: have now put the crazy glue Texas style in place.
27:56
Speaker 1: Everything's reattached, all the color coded UM muscles and nerves
28:02
Speaker 1: and arteries and veins like they've taken great care. They
28:05
Speaker 1: finally sewed the head on, and then they're going to Um.
28:09
Speaker 1: They're not just gonna say good luck with recovery. They're
28:11
Speaker 1: actually gonna induce a medical coma with this gentleman, whether
28:16
Speaker 1: it ends up being Um the Russian or somebody else. Um,
28:22
Speaker 1: because he's got a fatal disease. He may not make
28:24
Speaker 1: it if this keeps getting delayed. I don't think we
28:27
Speaker 1: mentioned that he's not just like, I don't want to
28:29
Speaker 1: live my life like this, Like he shouldn't have lived
28:31
Speaker 1: this long. I didn't realize he was that. Yeah. I
28:35
Speaker 1: think only ten percent of people with his condition make
28:38
Speaker 1: it into adulthood. And doctors are all like, you should
28:41
Speaker 1: have you know, you're on barrow time as it is.
28:43
Speaker 1: You should have gotten ahead transparent years ago exactly. So
28:47
Speaker 1: they're actually gonna induce a medical coma. Um, I don't
28:52
Speaker 1: know for how long did it? Say? Like three three
28:55
Speaker 1: weeks is what he was roughly estimating, just to keep everything,
28:58
Speaker 1: just to get everything growing together as calm as that with,
29:02
Speaker 1: while preventing movement too. Yeah, like the possibility of movement.
29:08
Speaker 1: He's just not moving for three weeks, which I mean,
29:12
Speaker 1: hello bedswords, Am I right? Although I guess that's probably
29:16
Speaker 1: the least of your warriors when you've just gotten a
29:18
Speaker 1: head transplant. Yeah, I think so. But that's that they
29:22
Speaker 1: I believe that's it. So they're they're going to be
29:25
Speaker 1: inducing a medical coma, and then they'll be passing electrical
29:28
Speaker 1: charges through the spinal column to try to induce um
29:33
Speaker 1: axon regrowth and repair this this whole time. And then
29:38
Speaker 1: after three weeks he'll get up, do a cart wheel
29:41
Speaker 1: and run right out of the hospital. No, after three weeks, Uh,
29:45
Speaker 1: maybe he'll open his eyes and move his mouth. Um,
29:49
Speaker 1: that would be a success to a certain degree. What
29:52
Speaker 1: they're really gonna be looking for is anything below the
29:55
Speaker 1: neck moving. Um, if he wiggles his fingers or his toes,
29:59
Speaker 1: that to breakthrough, like we've never had in medicine before. UM.
30:05
Speaker 1: But even if that happens, that would be just the
30:08
Speaker 1: beginning of a very very long road of uh, not
30:12
Speaker 1: only physiological rehab, but psychological rehab. Yeah, apparently the psychological
30:20
Speaker 1: impact a lot of people are worried about. When um
30:22
Speaker 1: Canavera wrote UH the the initial article in two thousand
30:27
Speaker 1: thirteen in that same journal, a couple of other Italian
30:31
Speaker 1: surgeons rode into the editors and said, there are a
30:34
Speaker 1: lot of things wrong with this ethically, even even just
30:39
Speaker 1: put aside all of the questions surgically ethically, you know,
30:44
Speaker 1: this guy is not taking these things into account. One
30:46
Speaker 1: of the things they pointed out was that insanity would
30:49
Speaker 1: be a likely outcome from head or body transplant, because
30:55
Speaker 1: we form our our sense of ourselves cognitively in large
30:59
Speaker 1: part through our body. So if you suddenly have a
31:02
Speaker 1: different body your you would and you basically wake up
31:07
Speaker 1: to you overnight with with two a big fat body
31:11
Speaker 1: identity crisis or identity crisis in general. Yeah, I mean
31:15
Speaker 1: they've had uh, they've seen this act out in like
31:18
Speaker 1: hand transplants, and that's really you know, you can't see
31:22
Speaker 1: your liver or kidney or your heart uh or cornea
31:27
Speaker 1: like stuff like that. But um, but I'm sure it's
31:30
Speaker 1: still you still think about the fact that your your
31:33
Speaker 1: kidney is from somewhere else, but you don't have to
31:36
Speaker 1: see it all the time. Yeah, exactly. So just that
31:39
Speaker 1: reminder of a hand, much less an entire body. Uh,
31:43
Speaker 1: it's going to be emotionally in psychologically challenging to say
31:46
Speaker 1: the least. Um. There's some other questions that this definitely
31:51
Speaker 1: raises as well. Um. For example, if you wanted to
31:58
Speaker 1: change your gender, would this be acceptable and acceptable surgery?
32:02
Speaker 1: I tend to say yes on that one. I can
32:05
Speaker 1: change your entire body instead of just parts of your body. Yeah. Yeah,
32:11
Speaker 1: just just you know that makes sense. It's like all
32:14
Speaker 1: at once, bam done. What about someone who what if
32:18
Speaker 1: this works and someone was super rich and just wanted
32:22
Speaker 1: a different body, like I want to be eight inches
32:26
Speaker 1: taller and muscular, so let's do this's million dollars. Uh.
32:34
Speaker 1: I would have an issue with that for for one reason,
32:37
Speaker 1: and that would be that you have just taken them
32:43
Speaker 1: the body of a potential organ donor that could have
32:45
Speaker 1: saved multiple lives of people who needed those organs. You
32:50
Speaker 1: took them because you wanted to be eight inches taller.
32:53
Speaker 1: Other than that, if if there was a yeah, well
32:57
Speaker 1: that's a pretty big one. I don't even I don't
32:58
Speaker 1: even want to qualify it with saying all than that,
33:00
Speaker 1: I have no problem with it, because that's such a
33:02
Speaker 1: huge problem. It disqualifies in my eyes. Uh. Here's the
33:07
Speaker 1: good news, though, is that, um, he doesn't have to
33:10
Speaker 1: get a percent of these cells to remain intact. There
33:15
Speaker 1: are studies out there, like you know, legit studies that say, uh,
33:19
Speaker 1: your your motor function, your basic motor function can be
33:21
Speaker 1: preserved if you just get of those cells to remain intact. So, um,
33:28
Speaker 1: the Atlantic says, if he failed a fuse every four
33:30
Speaker 1: or five, um, he could fail on every I'm sorry,
33:35
Speaker 1: four of every five nerve cells and it still might
33:38
Speaker 1: succeed in there, right, and well, the thing is is
33:42
Speaker 1: Canavero's whole thing is anytime somebody raises an objection to it,
33:46
Speaker 1: he's like peg poly ethylene glycol will handle it. And
33:51
Speaker 1: it does seem to work some pretty amazing miracles. But
33:55
Speaker 1: the it's not just some cure all magic stuff that
34:00
Speaker 1: just fixes everything. It remains to be seen and what's
34:04
Speaker 1: kind of fishy is a lot of the um there's
34:07
Speaker 1: some of the recent papers on PEG and what an
34:11
Speaker 1: amazing miracle compound it is are edited by Cannivero himself.
34:16
Speaker 1: So the guy who's saying, no, it's this miracle substance
34:21
Speaker 1: you should read about it is the one who's editing
34:23
Speaker 1: the stuff that he's telling you to go read about.
34:28
Speaker 1: I don't think we mentioned just like an organ can
34:30
Speaker 1: be rejected, that it could reject the body outright from
34:34
Speaker 1: the beginning, which would be a catastrophic failure. Um that
34:40
Speaker 1: that would kill you if your your body rejects your
34:43
Speaker 1: or your head. Yeah, well, I'm just glad he's hooked
34:47
Speaker 1: up with Dr Wren at least, because before that, before
34:52
Speaker 1: they had made contact, he was he was plowing full
34:55
Speaker 1: steam ahead, um and still wants to. But he hadn't
34:58
Speaker 1: even he wasn't trying it on mice and monkeys, you know,
35:04
Speaker 1: Like he hooked up with someone who was. I was like, oh, well,
35:07
Speaker 1: you're you're doing the real work. Let's get together on this.
35:10
Speaker 1: So his um, his idea was that he would have
35:14
Speaker 1: to practice on cadavers. Yeah, he needed to practice on cadavers.
35:19
Speaker 1: But apparently that would come after practicing on um animals,
35:25
Speaker 1: and apparently he according to bioethesis, he would be hard
35:30
Speaker 1: pressed to get approval even to carry out an experiment
35:34
Speaker 1: like this on animals these days, the most medical ethics
35:38
Speaker 1: boards would be like, no, this is unnecessary, this is
35:41
Speaker 1: not you shouldn't be doing this, so don't do that.
35:43
Speaker 1: At least in the United States, I should say, well,
35:46
Speaker 1: he's never gonna do this here. He would almost certainly
35:49
Speaker 1: have to do this. In China they have a lot
35:51
Speaker 1: more latitude. I saw there's this hospital in Vietnam that's
35:55
Speaker 1: like US, US, we'll do it because they probably can
35:59
Speaker 1: get funding and uh press means yeah, I would imagine.
36:07
Speaker 1: I know they went to the Russians because this gentleman
36:10
Speaker 1: is Russian and he thought he could get the government
36:12
Speaker 1: to chip in and they said no. And so now
36:15
Speaker 1: he is literally trying to raise money by selling things,
36:19
Speaker 1: raise bread. He's trying to raise bread by selling like
36:23
Speaker 1: mugs and key chains and stuff. This is not a
36:27
Speaker 1: lie with his head on, like these these muscular bodies
36:31
Speaker 1: and stuff. Wow, So it's uh I did see. I
36:35
Speaker 1: finally found it said between ten and a hundred million dollars,
36:38
Speaker 1: which is pretty big. Uh latitude there, Yeah, I mean
36:42
Speaker 1: there's like there's a it's pretty easy to point at
36:45
Speaker 1: Canavero and be like, here, what's what's what's your deal man?
36:48
Speaker 1: But it makes it easy to to look past um
36:54
Speaker 1: the patient spiritanovs UM situation, you know, like I'm sure
37:01
Speaker 1: he wants this to work so bad. Sure it's heartbreaking,
37:04
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I mean so much so that like
37:07
Speaker 1: he said, he doesn't want to just be an expensive
37:10
Speaker 1: euthan asia procedure. But he also said, you know, I'm
37:16
Speaker 1: headed toward death here soon, Like why not? Yeah? I
37:21
Speaker 1: saw one other thing. You got anything else there? I
37:24
Speaker 1: saw that another objection to this by the medical community
37:28
Speaker 1: would be that it could conceivably raise the yuck factor.
37:32
Speaker 1: That's what they call it UM among organ donation, just
37:37
Speaker 1: around among the general public. And this yuck factor. I
37:41
Speaker 1: checked it out because it was in scare quotes. It's
37:43
Speaker 1: a real thing, UM and it's basically the general public's
37:49
Speaker 1: um discussed toward bio like bioaugmentation, weird surgeries, UM, odd transplants.
37:59
Speaker 1: This this head transplant, body or body transplant or head
38:03
Speaker 1: transplant falls right into that weird yuck factor, almost like
38:06
Speaker 1: the Uncanny Valley. And I read this article about it,
38:10
Speaker 1: and apparently there's something there's a debate going on on
38:14
Speaker 1: whether humans have an inner wisdom of what is good
38:18
Speaker 1: or bad or acceptable, and when our yuck factor is activated,
38:23
Speaker 1: it's actually an inner wisdom that's saying that's not okay,
38:27
Speaker 1: don't do that. And this this author was arguing that
38:31
Speaker 1: that's not true, that it's actually what is called folk biology,
38:35
Speaker 1: that humans are kind of prewired to have an idea
38:39
Speaker 1: of what's natural and what's normal, and we're just simply
38:42
Speaker 1: grossed out when we're faced with something that challenges that normalcy.
38:48
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that it's right or wrong. There's
38:50
Speaker 1: this debate over which one is correct, folk biology or
38:55
Speaker 1: the inner wisdom. That's interesting. It is pretty interesting. Well,
38:59
Speaker 1: we at an entire show in two thousand and ten,
39:03
Speaker 1: I think January or maybe it was June started the
39:06
Speaker 1: j and it wasn't July. I wrote it down, but
39:11
Speaker 1: I just threw it away anyway, How organ donation works.
39:17
Speaker 1: That was a good one. And the therapeutic hypothermia want
39:21
Speaker 1: to check that out too. Yeah, Well, if you want
39:23
Speaker 1: to know more about this head transplant operation, you can
39:27
Speaker 1: type those words in the search part. How stuff works
39:29
Speaker 1: and it'll bring up a great article. And since I
39:32
Speaker 1: said that, it's time for listener mayo, I'm going to
39:37
Speaker 1: call this, um what should I call this one? I'm
39:42
Speaker 1: gonna call this anniversary of the podcast. Hey guys, my
39:48
Speaker 1: name is JP and I'm a business administration major at
39:51
Speaker 1: Christopher Newport University, currently studying at the University of Glasgow.
39:57
Speaker 1: Uh going into my senior year. Writing on my twenty
40:00
Speaker 1: first birthday, which is also the fourth anniversary that I
40:03
Speaker 1: began following the podcast my little brother introduced me to
40:06
Speaker 1: That's Why I sk and now immediately binged roughly three episodes.
40:10
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how many people right and saying this,
40:12
Speaker 1: but I can probably say listen to every single one.
40:14
Speaker 1: And yes, I know the episode in context of Hippie
40:17
Speaker 1: Rob's emergence. They haven't talked about him in a long time. No,
40:21
Speaker 1: he's been long gone. He seems like he would be
40:24
Speaker 1: like an assistant to the surgeon, you know, hippie. I
40:28
Speaker 1: don't think that'd be a good idea. No, No, it's
40:30
Speaker 1: a bad idea. And I don't mean a medical assistant.
40:33
Speaker 1: I mean like a you know, he did the jiu
40:35
Speaker 1: jitsu on the Idiot questions. Maybe but it just be
40:39
Speaker 1: some like clumsy like BrownHouse kick that it's just like
40:43
Speaker 1: six inches off the ground. The past four years have
40:47
Speaker 1: been some of the most influential on my life as
40:49
Speaker 1: a whole. Uh in your podcast has played a huge
40:52
Speaker 1: part now I'm matured as an adult through Chuck's soft
40:55
Speaker 1: spoken tone and Josh's optimistic demeanor. How about that? As
41:00
Speaker 1: well as Jerry's elite producing abilities. The podcast has made
41:04
Speaker 1: me look forward to Tuesday's something I never thought was possible.
41:08
Speaker 1: I guess he doesn't listen to Thursdays. Optimistic. Yeah, optimistic
41:13
Speaker 1: demeanor that's you never never would have called that one.
41:16
Speaker 1: Aside from how much I enjoy that maybe has us confused.
41:19
Speaker 1: Maybe because you have a soft spoken tone. Aside from
41:23
Speaker 1: how much I enjoy the podcast, you really shaped how
41:26
Speaker 1: I think things through as well as my perspective on
41:28
Speaker 1: many issues. People often forget that some matters have multiple
41:32
Speaker 1: sides to them and that a full opinion should be
41:34
Speaker 1: developed from all the facts. I figured today was the
41:37
Speaker 1: most fitting to write in given how much the show
41:39
Speaker 1: means to me, continue to look forward to Tuesdays and Thursdays.
41:43
Speaker 1: Oh there you go, Uh, And I'm anxiously waiting for
41:45
Speaker 1: the release of your next live tour schedule. Please come
41:48
Speaker 1: to d c H. I think we are at some
41:51
Speaker 1: point right. I've even gone as far as debating whether
41:55
Speaker 1: to get a tattoo excuse me to two of the
42:00
Speaker 1: iconic stuff you should know microphone, but not sure Mom
42:03
Speaker 1: would approve of it. Um, John, I'm gonna say, don't
42:06
Speaker 1: do that. I don't know, John, Maybe you do it,
42:08
Speaker 1: don't do it. I have high hopes that you'll do
42:12
Speaker 1: You're optimistic demeanor. Anyways, keeping keep doing what you're doing, guys.
42:17
Speaker 1: I'll be cheering from the sideline as you continue towards
42:19
Speaker 1: your goal of world domination. Cheers from Scotland. John Patrick, Vitty,
42:24
Speaker 1: Oh wow, and that was nice little touch at the end.
42:26
Speaker 1: Thank you, Uh, and everybody in Glasgow, Chuck, and I
42:31
Speaker 1: know it's Glasgow, but we like saying Glasgow. It rolls
42:33
Speaker 1: off the tongue. Did I say, gal m, who is that?
42:39
Speaker 1: John Patrick? That's right? Thanks a lot, John, We appreciate it. Uh.
42:44
Speaker 1: I say, go for the tattoo, but probably shouldn't listen
42:47
Speaker 1: to me, I say, don't. You should probably listen to
42:49
Speaker 1: Chuck if you want to know more about oh man,
42:53
Speaker 1: something's wrong with me today, dude. If you want to
42:57
Speaker 1: get in touch with me and Chuck like John did,
43:00
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s Y s K
43:01
Speaker 1: podcast or josh Im Clark. You can hang out with
43:04
Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know
43:06
Speaker 1: or slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You can send us
43:09
Speaker 1: an email. That stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot
43:12
Speaker 1: com and has always joined us sort of home on
43:14
Speaker 1: the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com For more
43:21
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
43:24
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com