16 replies to this topic

[Karl909]

http://www.theguardi...y-surgeon-claim

Just saw this on the front page of the guardian. Obviously I'm very skeptical as it sounds a pretty out there claim but thought I'd see what people thought.

Now, putting aside if it's possible or not, I wondered how it would fit into life extension?

[Sanhar]

Well... to directly answer your question, if a head (or more realistically head and spinal system) was grafted into another body that was younger it would likely extend life due to the youth of the cells of most of the body.  This presumes that the head, regardless of how aged, would not fail before the other, newer bodily tissues were expected to fail.

 

Due to the extreme horror (Frankenstein's Monster comes to mind as a public reference) of most people I personally think this is NOT the kind of publicity we need insofar as people think it would relate to the LE movement.

 

Insofar as this kind of thing from a scientific/productive aspect could help the LE movement I look more to TBR (total body replacement) of a robotic nature, i.e. inserting brain and spinal system into a robotic housing.  People would arch eyebrows at that but it wouldn't be quite as bad.

More productively, IMO, is replacing bodies part by part as they fail with cloned organs which includes skin, connective tissue, blood vessels and blood itself as well as internal organs (and anything else required).  Partial or progressive bionics in that regard is also a real option.

 

I feel people are less opposed to things that are less radical in progression even if they accomplish the same goal overall and public opposition is absolutely an issue when you consider what governments will or will not ban and what industry will or will not create.  Science is only the first step to realization of what we will use.

Edited by Sanhar, 25 February 2015 - 11:10 PM.

[caliban]

Canavero S. The "Gemini" spinal cord fusion protocol: Reloaded. Surg Neurol Int 2015;6:18

Attached Files

•  SurgNeurolInt6118-6488442_180124.pdf   614.24KB   12 downloads

[caliban]

Name: A Monkey Head TransplantCategory: BioScienceDate Added: 03 March 2015 - 11:12 PMSubmitter: calibanShort Description: describing the work of Dr White at the Mayo Clinicdescribing the work of Dr White at the Mayo ClinicView Video

Name: The first head transplants - documentaryCategory: BioScienceDate Added: 04 March 2015 - 12:31 AMSubmitter: calibanShort Description: None ProvidedSwedish subtitlesView Video

[ceridwen]

Head Transplants were the lead story in The New Scientist this week.

Edited by caliban, 04 March 2015 - 12:33 AM.
spelling, link added

[corb]

I think they should start smaller if they're serious about it.

Transplant an arm or a leg, something with lots of nerves but not a whole body.

I remember reading an article from an year or so ago about a team saying they could possibly do a leg because they've done a successful hand transplant, but as far as I know there's no people running around with someone elses legs yet.

 

I'll remain skeptical for the time being.

 

 

 

[YOLF]

This Italian scientist says we have the technology to perform a head transplant and has the first patient lined up with the procedure to occur in about two years.

[A941]

@corb

There have been multiple hand transpalants, even face transplants.

http://en.wikipedia....transplantation

 

I watched a documentary about a leg transplant, the man who got a new leg decided that he wants it removes because it felt strange (as far as ica nremember).

 

And this might be interessting too ;-)

http://en.wikipedia....transplantation

[jnsnfl]

The body transplant, and tracking away from the machine based alternative, would be seem to be a viable option for conditions where you have damage to one person from "the neck down" due to any number of causes.  However, it also seems a short sighted approach.  I get the public skepticism and fear of using the actual building blocks of human tissue to rebuild or repair one particular body part or an entire series of body parts, but really wouldn't fast tracking that research and combining it with say the alternative cell/biology triggers to stimulate normal growth into thinking the age of the tissues is younger (several cell biology studies are taking different tacks on this with some success).

I'm by no means learned in the field but just don't see other than the "as seen on TV" logo being plastered on the event, the value of doing a "body transplant" where we have other less fully involved problems to solve.  Is this a richman poorman issue?

[mandible]

Even if you can transplant a head what about the immunity issue?

He'd have to be on immune suppressing drugs like all other people who gets transplants and they raise the risk of cancer.

 

[YOLF]

Hmmm... I think it's more about the idea that it can be done and what that means. The amount of work involved with fixing this man's body would be immense and we'd be looking at dozens of therapies to get him to a normal life. The body transplant represents a single solution to the problem and will help fund science that will take the science far enough to print him a DNA/etc. corrected body.

 

Eventually, we'll be printing whole bodies from a handful of your cells and we'll need to to do this routinely. It will probably be less expensive than continuing to care for an aged body and reduce the number of resources and specialties required to provide healthcare and will be a better solution than keeping someone on disability etc for decades. I wouldn't be surprised if once this technology is proven that others won't be paid for by insurance anymore. Keeping a patchwork body alive would get very costly very quick and wouldn't provide the level of benefit that a body replacement or brain transplant would provide. You can put a brand new kidney in someone, but if the body is polluting it, it's not going to last as long or perform as good as it could as part of a new body. Most times, by the time you need something like a kidney, the rest of you isn't looking all that good either and the kidney failure has caused other systemic problems. The QoL improvements will be limited and far from perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.

Even if you can transplant a head what about the immunity issue?

He'd have to be on immune suppressing drugs like all other people who gets transplants and they raise the risk of cancer.

Not being able to lead an active life can have it's own risks. He may be better off this way, and he might even get a replacement body made from his own cells in his lifetime. 

[jnsnfl]

Hmmm... I think it's more about the idea that it can be done and what that means.....

Even if you can transplant a head what about the immunity issue?

He'd have to be on immune suppressing drugs like all other people who gets transplants and they raise the risk of cancer.

Not being able to lead an active life can have it's own risks. He may be better off this way, and he might even get a replacement body made from his own cells in his lifetime. 

 

Exactly my interest and excellently conveyed... "replacement body made from his own cells...".  Eliminates rejection and exposure issues for the sake of science proving x can be done.  Do we really need to bring back dinosaurs?  Get into a eplace/repair process for the vehicle in the state it exists rather than taking that volkswagen beetle engine and putting it in a maserati body... its still gonig to work only as good as a bug...

 

Cheers..

[YOLF]

Well, the body supports the brain, remember things started aging together, so the health of the brain will improve significantly if the body around it is healthy. Extended brain health is becoming more and more of a reality and the body supporting it is healthier than ever, the brain will be healthier and ever. So you're adding a supercharger and an advanced ignition system to the bug engine before putting it in the Maserati. 

 

Do we really need to let people die? Why should we all have to work harder to support people in aged disabled bodies if we could get them to a condition that allows them to continue to support themselves? 95% of healthcare budgets get spend on age related problems. We'd be much better off and could provide much better care to people if we could reduce that number to 10% with replacement bodies. That's 20x the benefit to society than simply "letting the dinosaurs go extinct." Many of these people also have a wealth of experience that they could continue to use to improve the human condition. Not doing it this way leaves a giant opportunity to improve our condition on the table. This is a revolutionary change for the benefit of all.

[mandible]

I think even if this technology ever becomes a real option it won't be available for everyone.

How's this supposed to turn out? If people live even longer then the planet will be overcrowded even sooner.

If problems like world hunger cannot even be solved then global longecity seems like a bad joke.

Edited by mandible, 01 May 2015 - 08:19 PM.

[YOLF]

Not really. Initially, reproduction will slow down, yet the carrying capacity of the earth will rise. We'll also be able to move into space onto something like orbitals. Slowing the rate of reproduction in the mean time once aging is defeated and there are no reproduction pressures is going to be important in giving us the window we need. If we don't age, we can postpone reproduction indefinitely. Eventually it will pick up again, but we'll also have better technologies available to manage it. Parents will also have better energy levels, and better circumstances when they raise kids and this will improve the kid's QoL. 

[jnsnfl]

So we inhabit a planet that currently supports a global population of 6++ B people and a large minority of them live in the throughs of starvation.  What do we want " world peace" but in lieu of that we could get a better QoL quotient for all.  This means we need dietary adjustments and methods for improving diet and reducing agriculturally driven environmental problems to solve other issues not related to "body replacements". The other issues of reproduction and population is not where I was headed btw.

 

I agree in concept to the "body replacement" but not necessarily this execution method which might lead to the "grow one in a garden" variety or the "mass warehouse" or "recycled" versions (ewww and gross..).

 

Research has proven at least in a few organisms cellular triggering can "fool" certain cells to performing as if they are in early life growth development states rather than the more mature plateau before significant decline begins.  This was done at a small cascading cellular level to one or more organs resulting in a systemic cascade affecting improvement in the overall organism (de-aging rather than stopping it or prolonging it).

 

I guess my perspective is more along the lines I'd rather see the science pursue parallelism in organ and cellular triggering self-repair to early stage cellular development instead of figuring out how or why we need to plug bob's body on ted's dead corpse or on of bob's cloned parts.  The two don't equate although they result in the same outcome, sort of.  The means to an end may justify all approaches for some. 

 

BTW.. I am quite okay with all cellular and reproductive research for how to make humans better creatures just like I am for any means to come up with unlimited energy that is not consequentially distructive to us and the planet, but that's just me.

 

I get the science of discovery is to investigative.  Yes I actually beleive it is that simple, but in this case I get the impression its more of a "we climbed it because we could" than we "needed to learn something we didn't know" considering what we know about the human genome and mapping of our DNA; yes we need to know more, but to this end?   Do we need to know how to surgically connect tissue at the micro-level?  Don't we already have visual means to see the variations and change in tissue during operations at the neuron level or was that a discovery moc-u-mentary I was watching?

 

Again, I'm all for taking science and health down a path that's positive and discovery IS its own reward, but is the practical application of body "replacement", even as described (re:YOLF, et.al.), only a bridge to another place we might get to without actually proving we can replace a "full body"?

 

Thank you for the dialog and ideas...

[Ark]

Imagine what / where the military is with this technology. They say the military is 60-80 years ahead of the private sector. One could only wonder how far the rabbit hole can go when it comes to these types of scientific breakthroughs.
Look what they did to me at area 51, they suspended me in methylene blue for 8 years. (A little humor)