Frankenstein-Head Transplant

[Secular Sanity]

No, there hasn’t been a human 'head transplant', and there may never be

"Neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero is in the news again, claiming to have performed the first successful human head transplant. But even cursory analysis reveals that he hasn’t. And scientific logic suggests he never will."

[Yazata]

It sounds like it was a practice operation, performed with a cadaver's head and body. He says that he successfully rejoined the major blood vessels and the spinal column.

I don't doubt that you could keep a head alive by using a donor's body as a living life support machine.

But that would just result in the worst sort of quadriplegic, like the unfortunate Christopher Reeve was until he died.

The challenge is in providing the transplanted head with some useful level of control over the donor body. And that's still a long way off, I fear.