IUBio

Head (or body!) transplants?

Brian Scott brians at interlog.com
Wed Apr 2 20:50:19 EST 1997


In article <19970330145600.JAA21179 at ladder01.news.aol.com>,
DrGG4 <drgg4 at aol.com> wrote:
>I have reprint from Science from the 70s about a monkey brain kept "alive"
>in a bell jar. Whate ever being alive means in this context?
>Gary


I just saw a show on The Learning Channel last night called Science 
Fiction - Science Fact.  They interviewed a neurosurgeon named Robert 
White in Connecticut who performed a  head transplant with monkeys.  
There was actual footage from the operation, and it showed the newly 
transplanted monkey head alive and well, and it was able to visually 
track stimuli etc.  It lived for about two weeks and it's death was said 
to be due to immune rejection problems.  This was done in 1971 but I 
haven't seen any corresponding publication.   White is eager to try this 
in paralyzed humans and said in the interview that he's making 
arrangements with a group in the Ukraine!

If you do a Medline search for "head transplant" at least one article 
came up for me, but it was a spanish article about a head transplant in dogs.

Brian


-- 
Brian Scott           | "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things 
brians at interlog.com   |  which he can afford to let alone."
Dept. of Physiology   |
University of Toronto |  - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)



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