Somewheres, they just transplanted a human hand. I would feel real weird wearing someone elses hand, let alone their entire body. I don't think my mind could cope.
Somewheres, they just transplanted a human hand. I would feel real weird wearing someone elses hand, let alone their entire body. I don't think my mind could cope.
Well, hands and heads are different things altogether, and you can't really even compare them. For example, I didn't even touch on the neuroendocrine function of the pituitary gland. Nor did we get to the innervation of the vagus nerve (the 10th cranial nerve) to many of the visceral organs in the abdomen. As well, we didn't discuss the autonomic nervous system and the almost certain instability of all sympathetic/parasympathetic regulation in the body. Likewise, how are you going to get the phrenic nerves originating from the cervical spine reconnected to the diaphragm function so you can breathe?
Sounds less and less likely, doesn't it...
-Dr. Imago
No. It's only in pursuit of such methodolgy that makes no sense, actually...I think.
The way we can preserve our heads to go onto some body that is not dying, would be for us to really pursue our quest of searching for how to keep cells replicating indefinitely (at least for a very long time), without somehow winding down like a clock.
Why did I bring up about winding down? Because I believe for this to be successful, we may have to use growth as part of the answer as to how to make this happen. I do not believe things start dying until they stop growing. (Notice how only children can regrow new teeth.)It is my understanding that such things as the redwoods and sequois, and the bristlecone pine, that have lived hundreds or thousands of years, is because they keep growing. If we master the ability to keep growing, then cells may keep replicating and not wind down like they do now, as if a clock is stopping. Then if we can control THIS, then our heads AND bodies will remain like new and we won't have to worry about sticking our head on ice, or preserving it somehow to be able to transplant it.
Hmmm. I kinda see what you mean, but I think that the resultant side benefits derived from pursuing any area of research, as has many times been the case in the past, can offer seredipitous and previously unexepected applications in other areas.
Well, you're partly right. The general consensus now is that "aging" has to do with the fraying of telomeres. Think of telomeres as the end bits of a long shoe string. When DNA is "new" and there is a lot of telomerase around, those shoe string tips look nice well-kempt. As we age just as the shoe string ages, get "damaged" and exposed to enviornmental stresses, those ends start to fray. Telomerase, what repairs these ends, also decreases and we start to see the cumulative effects of inability to as effective replicate or own DNA.
So, the secret may be in trying to figure out how to restore the function of telomerase, without letting it have the same affect on cells we don't want it to (i.e., namely cancer cells).
-Dr. Imago
Well, interestingly cancer cells do have the rather unique ability to continue growing effectively forever. If you culture some cancerous cells, you can keep them happily growing and living without much limit. Not true with normal animal cells.
If you are referring specifically to HeLa cells, then this is true. Not all cancer cells do this, though. For example, certain breast cancer lines fail to grow without estrogen.
And, yes, telomerase "dysregulation" is purported to be one of the many important mechanisms at play in immortal cancer lines.
-Dr. Imago
Skeptic Ginger
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We were talking about a decapitated head remaining conscious. There are many functions, especially in lower animals but also in humans which don't require consciousness.
Reflexes, such as pulling your hand away from pain are fast because they don't go to the brain to cause reaction. The pain only need reach the spinal column and your hand (or whatever) is moving away. The pain impulse still reaches the brain, so you feel it, but the reflex occurred at the spinal level.
No one was talking about instant cell death, just consciousness.
Skeptic Ginger
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I was creeped out for weeks just having heard the guy screaming. That was enough for my curiosity. But what did the "severed head do"? Reading a description couldn't be any worse than hearing the screams. So my curiosity is renewed. Maybe you could post it as a spoiler so those wanting not to read it wouldn't have to.
There is that famous picture of the Vietnamese man getting shot in the head. Most of the time they cut away. But the film actually shows the whole sequence which I saw once.
I have now concluded that consciousenes is immediately lost. Someone earlier pointed out how you black out when something less traumatic, as striking your head hard on something. That makes sense. And now it's conforting to know that if your head comes off, you probably would not even know it. Not even for a split second.
sinsanity2006
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A little off topic, but interesting.
Russian man lives normal life with a still heart
http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/361/15101_heart.html
Russian man lives normal life with a still heart
http://english.pravda.ru/main/18/90/361/15101_heart.html
Skeptic Ginger
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Wanna buy a bridge?
This is utter BS. Is Pravda like the Nat'l Enq.?
It's called physiology, elastic blood vessels do not pump blood.
I'm not sure that that means that a head could not be transplanted or even removed to be kept alive artificially (although other hurdles certainly apply). It's certainly possible that the brain can be revived after a very short loss of blood supply.
For example, a heart attack victim might loose circulation for a short time before being defibrillated or given CPR.
A fighter pilot might loose the majority of the blood in his head during a very high-G turn (over 9 g's is virtually impossible to remain conscious through for even the best and if it lasts more than a short time can cause serious injury or death). However, he can still regain consciousness after the G forces drop and normal circulation resumes.
Skeptic Ginger
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Having lost my sister-in-law to brain death following cardiac arrest, been in the medical field too long, and having a long discussion with the fire chief in charge of the Bellevue Medic Program which is part of Seattle's Medic One, maybe the finest Medic Program in the world,....
you lose 10% per minute even with CPR in the field after cardiac arrest.
In 10 minutes without the Medics or the hospital staff doing CPR and administering drugs and defibrillating shocks, almost everyone will suffer brain death. The exception of course is hypothermia. People have completely recovered from cardiac arrest for an hour give or take, if they were hypothermic at the time, such as in cold water drowning.
But other than hypothermic situations and in-hospital cardiac arrests, you only have 10 minutes if your heart stops and someone is doing CPR. You have about 4 minutes if no one does CPR.
And even though it is only now being looked at as a treatment, if I'm ever doing CPR on someone and waiting for the EMS responders, you can bet I'm going to pack that person in arrest's head in ice if at all possible. All my years as a nurse and nurse practitioner, I thought CPR was perfusing the brain. Turns out it perfuses the chest (and heart), but not the brain, at least not sufficiently.
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Yes, I realize that is true, but I am not suggesting minutes of loss of blood supply. I am saying that the seconds it would take to get a head connected to blood supply or another body would not preclude the brain from surviving
Apparently, a Soviet scientist named Sergei S. Bryukhonenko did some experiments in this area in the 1930s, using dogs as test subjects. A film about this (in English) was released in 1940, entitled Experiments in the Revival of Organisms. (Link goes to Wikipedia; from there there is a link to the film in the Internet Archive. It's kind of disturbing.)
According to the Wiki, the best they could do was a few minutes only. Of course, that's with 1930s Soviet technology, so...who knows?
The film actually looks like a dramatic recreation or something, but there are contemporary comments about the experiments that seem to indicate that they were really carried out.
According to the Wiki, the best they could do was a few minutes only. Of course, that's with 1930s Soviet technology, so...who knows?
The film actually looks like a dramatic recreation or something, but there are contemporary comments about the experiments that seem to indicate that they were really carried out.
shemp
a flimsy character...perfidious and despised
After having read this thread, I'm having some ethical qualms about my collection of shrunken heads. Perhaps I shall stop producing them.
Absolutely not! You are clearly doing very important and admirable work. We all know that as technology advances, it becomes smaller. And that smaller systems are often much faster, because the signals do not need to travel as far. Also, they are often more efficient and the prices can drop due to the need for less material.
Your research in shrinking the size of human heads is very important and I fully support your efforts!
qayak
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You can't do a head/brain transplant. If your brain is damaged and they replace it with another, it would simply be someone else's brain on your body. You would no longer exist but I am sure the new brain would appreciate the nice body you gave them. Your brain/mind is your self identifier. Remove it and you no longer exist.
Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett do an excellent job of explaining this in "The Mind's I."
Um....I dont think you understand. That's basically the point. Perhaps I should have said "body transplant"
But the purpose is to preserve the head/brain. The reason a head would be moved, and not just the brain is I doubt that you could get the brain out of the head without severely damaging it
qayak
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