Head transplants on 1000 mice performed by Chinese doctor

Originally published on 08 June, 2015
A Chinese doctor who has performed hundreds of head transplants on mice says he plans to perform the procedure on monkeys. Ren Xiaoping, who left a position at the University of Cincinnati to continue his research in China, first transplanted the head of a mouse on to the body of another in 2013.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, he has performed about 1,000 such procedures since then. Ren uses a diamond-bladed knife to create a cut that cleanly separates the recipient’s head from its body. Next, the donor animal’s head is separated at the midbrain to preserve the brainstem so that the heart continues to beat and lungs continue to breathe. Blood vessels are then connected using silicone tubes so that oxygen-rich blood from the donor body can reach the recipient’s head as quickly as possible, after which spinal cord nerves from the recipient’s head and the donor body are fused together using polyethylene glycol, or PEG.
The recipient head is then affixed to the donor body with pins, wires and screws before the silicon tubes are removed and blood vessels muscles and skin are joined using tiny stitches. The mice have lived for as long as a day, a record Ren is hoping to improve on. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Ren hopes to to transplant the head of a monkey in 2015.
---------------------------------------­­---------------------------------------­-­---------------
Next Animation Studio’s News Direct service provides daily, high-quality, informative 3D news animations that fill in for missing footage and help viewers understand breaking news stories or in-depth features on science, technology, and health.
Sign up for a free trial of News Direct's news animations at newsdirect.nex...
To subscribe to News Direct or for more info, please visit:
newsdirect.nex...