Nanchang Weida Medical Instrument Co., Ltd.

新闻资讯

2014

Scientists invented magic medical glue for head transplantation

In an article and video published in international neurosurgery on Monday, a dog with severe spinal cord injury (almost completely severed) was "miraculously" able to walk three weeks after injecting "glue" into the space between the broken spinal cord. Sergio canavero, an Italian neurosurgeon, said the spinal cord repair for dogs could make a human head transplant possible next year.

But this has caused other scientists to worry about the technology. No matter in the body of spinal injury patients or in the body of donors, the two ends of the separated (broken) spinal cord need to be fused. The junction contains tens of thousands of neurons, which are like a bunch of spaghetti. If these neurons are not well opposed, they will miss each other's growth and will never form an electrical signal transmission pathway, that is, they will not be able to send nerve impulses in the body.

The researchers who published the paper claim that a chemical called polyethylene glycol (PEG) may help reconnect severed spinal nerves. They first cut off the spinal cord of 16 mice, then injected peg into the end gap of the spinal cord of 8 mice, and injected normal saline into the remaining 8 mice. According to the researchers, four weeks later, five of the eight mice in the peg group regained some exercise ability, compared with the control group injected with normal saline. The other three mice in the experimental group died as well as all the mice in the control group.

Arthur Kaplan, a medical ethicist at New York University, said the latest research shows that the operation still has many years to go. "The work could take three to four years to achieve spinal cord repair in humans, and seven to eight years to try any kind of head transplant," he said

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