Human head transplants could be just a decade away, an ex-neurosurgeon has claimed.
Bruce Mathew, a former clinical lead for neurosurgery at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, believes robotics, stem cell transplants and nerve surgery will make it possible.
He said: “It will take a number of advancements but it will probably happen in the next 10 years.”
Another scientist, Professor Sergio Canavero, is already working on the first head transplant – which would see a head severed at the spinal column attached to another body.
However, Mathew believes that it would better to remove the whole head and spinal column and replace it in a donor body.
He said: “If you transplant the brain, and keep the brain and spinal cord together, it’s not impossible.
“The idea that you split the spinal cord is utterly ridiculous. The thought of keeping it one piece has always been daunting, but with modern technology you can do most things.
“At the moment, you can connect one or two nerves but with robotics and artificial intelligence, we’ll soon be able to do 200 nerves.
“You would take off the spinal column, so that you could drop in the whole brain, spinal cord and lumbar sacral into a new body.”
The technique could help people with diseases such as muscular dystrophy.
