An attempt to transplant a human head onto a (donated, deceased) human body will be discussed at this year’s annual conference of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons. With new research suggesting potential links between gut/brain and heart/brain that might affect the evolution of an individual’s mental health, would a head transplant be able to rebuild those potentially vital links?
Beyond the medical hurdles that still exist for head transplants—such as ensuring the healthy fusing of the two spinal chords—bioethicists are exploring the questions “What makes you, you? And would your person change if your head was placed on a new torso?”
More and more research suggests that the gut is the new brain. Gut bacteria may play a significant role in sending signals to the brain and changes in those signals may affect our mental health and may be associated with psychiatric disorders. What kind of signals will the bacteria in your new gut send to your brain.
Neurocardiology is a new field bringing together specialists of the heart (cardiologists) and the brain (neurologists) to explore influential links between the two. Innovative research at the HeartMath Institute suggests that the electromagnetic field of the heart synchronizes our entire body and links us, in a physical way, to people with whom we have interactions and relationships.
On an energetic level, it is believed that everything about you is stored in your bioenergy field. In a previous post, I discussed how information about every thought, feeling, experience, physiological process, memory, everything about us might be recorded in our body using a process similar to the emerging technology of spintronics. Spintronics and molecular spintronics uses the spin of particles to store a lot of densely packed information. If our body does store our personal information in every cell, how would the new head with its own personal history merge with the new body with its own store of data?
Few studies have been conducted on whether organ transplants can change a recipient’s personality. The most cited study was done in 1992 and included 47 heart transplant patients in Vienna in which only three of those recipients (six per cent) reported a change in personality. However, numerous personal anecdotes can be found of personality attributes, habits or perspectives that only began after the transplant. Further study would be necessary to determine the potential causes of such drastic changes—and cellular memory would certainly be one option.
Even though no one knows the answer to how a head transplant might change a person, it might be safe to say that the composition of our entire person is a tad complex and it will no doubt take many head transplants before they get it right.
(Note to husband and children: Do not agree to a head transplant for me until at least 2030. Thank you.)
Touchy Subjects 