China
Africa
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Postnatal Bone Growth: Some Methods of Assessment
Published in D. Dixon Andrew, A.N. Hoyte David, Ronning Olli, Fundamentals of Craniofacial Growth, 2017
Other agents, some of which, e.g., the procion dyes (Seiton and Engel, 1969), tetracycline (Frost, 1968), fluorochrome, lead acetate (Okada and Mimura, 1938; Yen and Shaw, 1977), trypan blue, and sodium fluoride have both been shown to be of value. Such agents have advantages and disadvantages (Baer et al., 1983). One or more different vital markers have been used in the same animal and in heterotopic head transplants (Baer and Ackerman, 1968; Cleall et al., 1968; Vilmann, 1968; Sullivan, 1983; Hirabayashi, 1991).
A response to Mulder
Published in Bertha Alvarez Manninen, Jack Mulder Jr., Civil Dialogue on Abortion, 2018
Philosophers have been discussing the issue of head transplants in their writings on personal identity for decades. It may be the case very soon that this will no longer be a science-fiction scenario. In 2013, Dr. Sergio Canavero, an Italian neurosurgeon, announced that he was close to being able to perform the world’s first head transplant using two procedures: a head anastomosis venture and a spinal cord fusion.6 The patient whose head will be transplanted is 31-year-old Valery Spiridonov, who suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman disease, a muscle degeneration disease, and feels that this surgery is his only hope for gaining a functional body. While explaining how the surgery proceeds, notice the language used by the author: In a specially equipped hospital suite, two surgical teams will work simultaneously – one focused on Spiridonov and the other on the donor’s body, selected from a brain-dead patient and matched with the Russian for height, build and immunotype. Both patients – anesthetized and outfitted with breathing tubes – will have their heads locked using metal pins and clamps, and electrodes will be attached to their bodies to monitor brain and heart activity. Next, Spiridonov’s head will be nearly frozen, ultimately reaching 12 to 15 degrees Celsius, which will make him temporarily brain-dead. … Under an operating microscope, doctors will cleanly chop through both spinal cords … so thin that it is measured in angstroms, provided by the University of Texas. Then the rush is on: Once sliced, Spiridonov’s head will have to be attached to the donor’s body and connected to the blood flow within an hour. (When the head is transferred, the main vessels will be clamped to prevent air from causing a blockage.) Surgeons will quickly sew the arteries and veins of Spiridonov’s head to those of his new body. The donor’s blood flow will then, in theory, re-warm Spiridonov’s head to normal temperatures within minutes … Once he awakens, Spiridonov will start his rehabilitation, including virtual reality training. Canavero predicts his patient will be able to walk three to six months after surgery.7The only reason Spiridonov would put himself through this ordeal, knowing that he may die, is because he thinks there is a possibility that he will survive the surgery. It is Spiridonov who will emerge from the operating table, not the donor body. It is he who will have to go through physical therapy, it is he that has to learn to walk again. Because it is Spiridonov’s head that will (hopefully) survive, it is Spiridonov himself who will survive. And if we ask why it is Spiridonov who we think will survive, it is likely because we feel that Spiridonov goes where his brain goes, because it is his brain that is responsible for all the aspects of his mind that form his personal identity. This is the same belief that fueled the respective families of Terri Schiavo and Nancy Beth Cruzan to inscribe two death dates on their loved one’s tombstone – the tacit implication is that the person dies when the mind does, and that this can be a separate death than the death of the body.
Farewell and With Gratitude
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2022
I shall end with two thoughts. Tragically, we are witnessing worldwide misinformation/disinformation campaigns that directly and negatively affect biological survival. Yet, as far as I can tell, the items we publish in AJOB Neuroscience, even on topics like neuroenhancement, have, at most, received only modest attention, even among the most strident groups of conservatives or contrarians. Not even our issue on head transplants—one of our most read issues—has attracted much (any?) attention from mainstream conspiracy theorists, alt-right pundits, or eccentrics. To me, this says that the issues we engage in neuroethics, at least for now, are beyond the public or political grasp and interest. That neuroethics continues to be a “niche” topic might seem a relief to its scholars, but it’s a good bet that it will be only a matter of time before some global concern or world threat involving the neurosciences will appear and mesmerize the media, who will play it for all it’s literally worth. When that happens, neuroethicists will be catapulted into the media spotlight, much as medical ethicists were when managed care emerged in the health care marketplace in the late 1980s or as they do today with debates on COVID and its vaccines.
It Is Time to Expand the Scope and Reach of Neuroethics
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2019
Much neuroethics research and commentary to date has appropriately focused on the significant ethical issues relating to the development and adoption of novel neurotechnologies such as deep brain stimulation (DBS), responsive neurostimulation (RNS), and more recently neuro-wearables and machine–brain interfaces. A quick review of target articles published in AJOB Neuroscience since its first issue was published in May 2010 reveals a focus on implantable neurotechnologies, with 14 articles on implantable devices such as deep brain stimulators (DBS), and 13 articles on cognitive or moral enhancement. Twelve target articles have focused on disorders of consciousness, six on free will and moral behavior, and an entire issue devoted to a dubious proposal for a head transplant.
Human Brain Surrogates Research: The Onrushing Ethical Dilemma
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2021
I worry more about applications of the ex vivo brain research to humans. People are already paying thousands of dollars to have their bodies or their decapitated heads frozen. As noted above, an Italian neurosurgeon keeps promising to perform human head transplants “soon” (Kean 2016; Rommelfanger and Boshears 2017; Wolpe 2018). Desperate people will do desperate things and the Sestan experiment—even though it was done with pig brains and did not even produce an EEG reading, let alone anything like consciousness—seems likely to encourage someone to offer “BrainX” to terminal patients. And that raises serious ethical concerns.