Neurosurgeon plans world's first head transplant

An Italian Neurosurgeon planning to carry out the first human head transplant has unveiled a virtual reality system that will 'prepare patients for life in a new body' and hopes to perform the operation in the UK.

Professor Dr Sergio Canavero wants to carry out the operation in 2017 and believes the UK looks like the "most promising place" for the procedure, which he believes could lead to people who are paralysed from the neck down being able to walk again.

A wheelchair user from Russia, Valery Spiridonov has volunteered to take part in the first operation, which would see his head "frozen" to stop brain cells dying and tubes connected to support key arteries and veins. 

The spinal cord would then be cut, repaired and fused on to a donor body and the skin stitched back together.

And if successful the process could still lead to "unexpected psychological reactions" from the patient as they get used to their new life, so a virtual reality world to prepare them for a different body is being developed.

"This virtual reality system prepares the patient in the best possible way for a new world that he will be facing with his new body," said Prof Canavero.

"A world in which he will be able to walk again."

"So many countries are willing to follow me outside of Europe or the US. I'm now trying to bring this to the west and I will try my best to make this happen here in the UK," he said.

The procedure for cutting the spinal cord is said to be so delicate with the need to avoid nerves that a knife that can control cuts to a micrometre (one millionth of a metre) has been developed by Farid Amirouche at the University of Illinois.

Press Association