Could you keep a head alive on its own?

Will - Thanks David. I’m not sure I’d want to be the first to give it a go either. But is it feasible? Could we transfer our head to a different body? Adam Taylor, Professor of Anatomy at Lancaster University, is on hand to help us out…

Adam - One of the main issues with any transplant is immune rejection: when the body recognises the tissue doesn’t belong to them. We can now manage that with anti rejection drugs so it dampens down the immune response so it enables the organ to function without the body attacking it.

Will - Thanks to immunosuppressants, transplants of organs have been going on successfully for decades: kidneys, livers and even hearts and lungs.

Adam - But when we look at the head as a whole, that’s a lot more difficult a conundrum to solve. We’re transplanting a number of organs and structures that have to be connected up to the donor. There’s a very methodical approach, we have to maintain the donor tissue alive but not alive enough that it burns through all of its energy stores.

Will - And when it comes to the head, the organ consuming most of our body’s energy is the brain, which hoovers up 20% of all the blood coming out of our hearts with every single beat.

Adam - We would have to cool the brain down, put it into a temporary hibernation, while the surgeons go about attaching the major arteries etc. 

Will - Everything we’ve discussed so far, while difficult, is nonetheless doable. But, what we haven’t yet touched on, is where the prospect of a head transplant becomes a lot less realistic…

Adam - And that comes with the issue of the spinal cord. Nerves are not great at regenerating themselves in the brain and the spinal cord. We are getting closer to that in a medical context, some interesting things are happening. The challenge is our spinal cord is segmented, full of motorways that control your movements. Connecting the body with the head so that the motorways line up properly is a big challenge. One we don’t see being solved anytime soon.

Will - There you have it, David. Keep your head up, and maybe we’ll get there some day. Thanks very much to Adam Taylor from the University of Lancaster…