from the dr-frankenstein-creates-his-monster-or-not dept.
The businessinsider.com article seems to best line out the many clues and linkings that this may be the case, not the least of which seems to be that the image of Dr. Canavero is used as the neurosurgeon in the game. Also possibly telling, the article states:
Hideo Kojima, who heads up the “Metal Gear Solid” franchise, tweeted about his next project in 2010: “The next project will challenge a certain type of taboo. If I mess up, I’ll probably have to leave the industry. However, I don’t want to pass by avoiding that. I turn 47 this year. It’s been 24 years since I started making games. Today, I got an ally who would happily support me in that risk. Although it’s just one person. For a start, it’s good.” This makes it sound like Kojima was able to persuade Dr. Canavero to join his venture — to help leverage his authority as a famous doctor and neurosurgeon to promote "Metal Gear Solid 5" with a viral marketing stunt.
[More...]
More info on the possible procedure from the iflscience.com article :
It started in 2013, when Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group proposed the idea of using surgery to extend the lives of people with degenerated muscles and nerves or cancer-permeated organs, New Scientist reports. Canavero summarized the 36-hour procedure he plans to follow in Surgical Neurology International in February of this year. He also plans to launch the project at the annual American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons meeting in Maryland this June. He’ll need a staff of 150 doctors and nurses.
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Michelle Star writes at C/net that Surgeon Sergio Canavero, director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group in Italy, believes he has developed a technique to remove the head from a non-functioning body and transplant it onto the healthy body. According to Canavero's paper published in Surgical Neurology International, first, both the transplant head and the donor body need to be cooled in order to slow cell death. Then, the neck of both would be cut and the major blood vessels linked with tubes. Finally, the spinal cords would be severed, with as clean a cut as possible. Joining the spinal cords, with the tightly packed nerves inside, is key. The plan involves flushing the area with polyethylene glycol, followed by several hours of injections of the same, a chemical that encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh. The blood vessels, muscles and skin would then be sutured and the patient would be induced into a coma for several weeks to keep them from moving around; meanwhile, electrodes would stimulate the spine with electricity in an attempt to strengthen the new nerve connections.
Head transplants have been tried before. In 1970, Robert White led a team at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, US, that tried to transplant the head of one monkey on to the body of another. The surgeons stopped short of a full spinal cord transfer, so the monkey could not move its body. Despite Canavero’s enthusiasm, many surgeons and neuroscientists believe massive technical hurdles push full body transplants into the distant future. The starkest problem is that no one knows how to reconnect spinal nerves and make them work again. “This is such an overwhelming project, the possibility of it happening is very unlikely,” says Harry Goldsmith.
The scientist who claims to be about to carry out the first human head transplant says that he has successfully done the procedure on a monkey.
Maverick neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero has tested the procedure in experiments on monkeys and human cadavers, he told New Scientist.
Dr Canavero says that the success shows that his plan to transplant a human's head onto a donor body is in place. He says that the procedure will be ready before the end of 2017 and could eventually become a way of treating complete paralysis.
takyon: Coverage at New Scientist with a "graphic content warning".
Previously: First Human Head Transplant Could Happen in Two Years
Complete Head Transplant or Complete Publicity Stunt
A breakthrough in restoring micro-circulation has allowed scientists to keep pig brains alive outside of a body:
In a step that could change the definition of death, researchers have restored circulation to the brains of decapitated pigs and kept the reanimated organs alive for as long as 36 hours.
The feat offers scientists a new way to study intact brains in the lab in stunning detail. But it also inaugurates a bizarre new possibility in life extension, should human brains ever be kept on life support outside the body.
The work was described on March 28 at a meeting held at the National Institutes of Health to investigate ethical issues arising as US neuroscience centers explore the limits of brain science.
During the event, Yale University neuroscientist Nenad Sestan disclosed that a team he leads had experimented on between 100 and 200 pig brains obtained from a slaughterhouse, restoring their circulation using a system of pumps, heaters, and bags of artificial blood warmed to body temperature. There was no evidence that the disembodied pig brains regained consciousness. However, in what Sestan termed a "mind-boggling" and "unexpected" result, billions of individual cells in the brains were found to be healthy and capable of normal activity.
It's possible that the level of function could be increased, and the brains could be kept alive indefinitely:
Sestan now says the organs produce a flat brain wave equivalent to a comatose state, although the tissue itself "looks surprisingly great" and, once it's dissected, the cells produce normal-seeming patterns.
The lack of wider electrical activity could be irreversible if it is due to damage and cell death. The pigs' brains were attached to the BrainEx device roughly four hours after the animals were decapitated.
However, it could also be due to chemicals the Yale team added to the blood replacement to prevent swelling, which also severely dampen the activity of neurons. "You have to understand that we have so many channel blockers in our solution," Sestan told the NIH. "This is probably the explanation why we don't get [any] signal."
Sestan told the NIH it is conceivable that the brains could be kept alive indefinitely and that steps could be attempted to restore awareness. He said his team had elected not to attempt either because "this is uncharted territory."
Next step: hooking it up to a computer?
Related: First Human Head Transplant Could Happen in Two Years
Complete Head Transplant or Complete Publicity Stunt
Claims That Head Transplant Has Been Successfully Done on a Monkey
How Would You Define "A Successful Human Head Transplant"?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kaszz on Thursday April 23 2015, @10:57PM
The critical part is reconnection the spinal cord. Transplanting heads has already been done. If spinal cord reconnection works then many people that are currently in wheel chairs will have a life changing event. The treatment in general consists of cellular matrix and cell signal substances. There's some good progress asfair, but it's not prime time ready yet.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Friday April 24 2015, @12:03AM
If spinal cord reconnection works then many people that are currently in wheel chairs will have a life changing event.
Or a life ending one.
It seems to me that the arrangement of the nerve bundles in the spine aren't likely to be as exacting as your average Mil Spec AMPHENOL connector.
I wonder where (what country) this could be carried out, and if it could be even attempted legally. It seems there would be a lot of takers, but few givers.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by kaszz on Friday April 24 2015, @03:47AM
You don't connect it with direct surgery. You provide the right circumstances for cells to grow and figure out the connection process themselves.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 24 2015, @05:46AM
You provide the right circumstances for cells to grow and figure out the connection process themselves.
And because the nerve cells are connected to the brain cells, they are really good at figuring this out by themselves? ;-)
Someone should tell the quadriplegics then?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @01:45PM
The brain is actually very good at relearning the connections and rewiring itself, but it can't do anything if the nerves aren't connected, and nerves grow very slowly.
Anyway, I don't think kaszz was advocating for full-body transplants as you seem to be assuming, just stating that a spinal cord reconnection procedure itself would be life changing for some people. I'm sure they'll happen one day, but that day will likely be a long way off and there probably won't be many good reasons to actually perform them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Friday April 24 2015, @12:27AM
If they can figure out how to reconnect spinal cords from two different bodies, they'll be able to do it inside one body. I wonder what they have tried so far, and if it includes injecting stem cells into the spinal column?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Friday April 24 2015, @03:26AM
I can't understand why they aren't doing a lot more research into this sort of thing : http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/284152.php [medicalnewstoday.com]
Without even counting the humanitarian reasons, from an economics point of view it would be massively worth it to be able to cure or ameliorate paralysis.
If you read the article it seems to have been funded by a couple of charities, and they are looking for funding to continue.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 24 2015, @03:53AM
They tried cell matrix and signal substances into broken mouse spines asfair. I think it worked but, if it will work on humans is another story. You have to delve into the subject.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by wisnoskij on Friday April 24 2015, @12:32AM
Man, there are still thousands of people hopping around on crutches, because we cannot even do hand, leg, or even finger transplants. Either head transplants are a complete fantasy, or the medical establishment has been hiding major advanced from the general public.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Gravis on Friday April 24 2015, @01:04AM
"we cannot even do hand, leg, or even finger transplants"
from wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
The first hand transplant to achieve prolonged success was directed by a team of Kleinert Kutz Hand Care surgeons including Warren C. Breidenbach and Tsu-Min Tsai in cooperation with the Christine M. Kleinert Institute, Jewish Hospital and the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky. The procedure was performed on New Jersey native Matthew Scott on January 14, 1999. Scott had lost his hand in a fireworks accident at age 24. Later in 1999, the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team asked him to do the honors of throwing out the ceremonial first pitch. The Louisville group went on to perform the first five hand transplants in the United States and have performed nine hand transplants in eight recipients as of 2008.
you trollin?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Friday April 24 2015, @01:11AM
Notice the use of single digits, they have to be thousands of people with the finances or insurance to cover any medical expenses but who are arm-less, finger-less, or leg-less. Are they limbless for philosophical or religious reasons?
(Score: 2, Touché) by Gravis on Friday April 24 2015, @01:26AM
Notice the use of single digits, they have to be thousands of people with the finances or insurance to cover any medical expenses but who are arm-less, finger-less, or leg-less. Are they limbless for philosophical or religious reasons?
so because appendage transplants haven't been streamlined it's not possible to do a head transplant? you are trollin!
(Score: 1) by aXis on Friday April 24 2015, @07:54AM
In some ways it makes sense.
Many amputees can achieve decent quality of life with regular prosthetics. Transplants are riskier, have issues with taking imunosupressants, and have psycological complications. A lot of amputees would be put off by those risks and stick with the prosthetics.
There's no such thing as a whole body prosthetic (including organs) yet, so if you have a condition where your body is failing you then a head transplant might be a reasonable last ditch option.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @12:50PM
or the medical establishment has been hiding major advanced from the general public
More likely for political reasons.
People cannot be allowed to have this, or it will be nearly impossible to tell one person from another. Therefore the world will be difficult to control. This procedure may also bring unlimited life, with a brain being put on another body when the body gets old and dies (just like Trills in Star Trek). Imagine an 500 year old person in the body of a 20 year old. I suspect they are keeping this technology only available for a select group of people who are running this world. It is not unnatural that they are planning to stay in power forever and have very long plans and can even wait forever. If only we had a Snowden or Manning in the medical field to tell us of this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @04:18PM
I fear that there is not nearly enough tinfoil in the world to cover your hat. Or maybe you were going for "+5, Funny"?
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Friday April 24 2015, @09:02PM
because we cannot even do hand
Yes we can.
leg
Because prosthetics are a far better option in the case of legs.
or even finger transplants.
Because losing fingers does not reduce quality of life sufficiently to require anything as drastic as a transplant. And if you do need new fingers, having one of your own toes transplanted is a safer option.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @01:15AM
I seem to recall reading that, yes, transplantation of heads has been done in monkeys. What they aren't telling you is that the patients only managed to survive a few days after the surgery. And their spinal cords were not reconnected. If that is the current state of the art, I doubt that any ethics committee attached to a reputable hospital would allow this kind of surgery to go forward. This has the looks of a publicity stunt.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2015, @02:37AM
If this tech is ever perfected, how difficult would it be to create Hydra Humans each with long necks and heck maybe tweak the legs and arms so as to be able to walk on all fours?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by CoolHand on Friday April 24 2015, @11:49AM
...so did anyone actually read the whole summary? This has been up over 12 hours, and no one has commented on the fact that this is most likely a super elaborate publicity stunt for Metal Gear Solid 5? If so, this is taking things to a whole new level for the gaming industry (and publicists even).
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Friday April 24 2015, @01:24PM
The non-gamer world might notice, and when all is revealed they will say "meh, just a game." I don't think they will find out because the already known MGS5 connection spoils the stunt.