World’s First Human Head Transplant a Success

By Sarah Knapton. The world’s first human head transplant has allegedly been performed on a corpse in an 18 hour operation which successfully connected the spine, nerves and blood vessels of two people.

The operation was carried out by a team led by Dr Xiaoping Ren of Harbin Medical University, China, who last year successfully grafted a head onto the body of a monkey.

Italian Professor Sergio Canavero, Director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, who has been working with the team, said they would ‘imminently’ move onto a living human who was paralysed from the neck down.

He told The Telegraph that electrical stimulation of the nerves proved the operation on the corpse had been successful, and that the two people had been completely attached. (Read more from “World’s First Human Head Transplant a Success” HERE)

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Did the Human Head Transplant Really Happen? Not So Fast, Say Some

By IFL Science. Never too far away from making headlines, the controversial neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero is back with claims that the world’s first head transplant is “imminent”, after Chinese scientists successfully carried out the first head transplant on a human corpse.

He revealed the news at a press conference in Vienna on Friday morning, The Telegraph reports. Professor Canavero claims the feat was carried out during an 18-hour operation at Harbin Medical University in China, during which a team of surgeons successfully severed then reconnected the spinal cord, nerves, and blood vessels in the spine and neck. . .

“The first human transplant on human cadavers has been done,” Canavero told the crowd, according to the Telegraph. “A full head swap between brain-dead organ donors is the next stage. And that is the final step for the formal head transplant for a medical condition which is imminent.” (Read more from “Did the Human Head Transplant Happen?” HERE)

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