DailyDirt: Keep Your Head On...

Some surgeries that were really risky just a couple decades ago are nearly routine now -- though the risk of death and/or complications is always going to exist. However, the idea of a head transplant is more than a little "out there" when it comes to extreme medical procedures. There are some people working on transplanting heads (or switching bodies, depending on your point of view), but early adopters aren't expected to get any life extension benefits just yet.

• Head transplants have been tried in a bunch of different animals over the last few decades, but one surgeon has performed about 1,000 head transplants on mice since 2003. These mice have lived as long as one day after the procedure, so this doctor is going to try primates next. IANAD, but maybe he should stick to mice.... [url]
• Monkey head transplant surgery has been done before, but the animals didn't live for too long, either. Brain grafts and nerve tissue regeneration might be a more promising research approach, but figuring out how to keep brains alive (without the original body) seems like an idea that won't go away. [url]
• James Boysen had a partial skull and scalp transplant -- an extreme way to get a new head of hair. Actually, doctors did this surgery because he needed a pancreas and kidney transplant and also had cancer damage to his skull. [url]

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