Could medical science keep a decapitated head alive?

[Spit]

Since your entire body is a vessel to keep your brain alive, I think our technology might be a wee bit lacking to keep it alive for very long.

I would also think if you did get the head animated (as much so as a head can be), the pain would be excruciating. So now we have some poor guy who can only see whatever is straight ahead, and in horrible pain. I wouldn’t want to volunteer.

Although, this would be a great experiment for convicted pedophiles.

[LouisB]

I seem to dimly recall a few photographs of a dog’s head grafted onto another dog’s body; a two headed dog, if you will. IIRC, the grafted head was capable of drinking water, but I’m not sure. I think these photographs were in Life or Time or some such magazine. Maybe I dreamed the whole damn thing.

[Spit]

@LouisB

I seem to dimly recall a few photographs of a dog’s head grafted onto another dog’s body; a two headed dog, if you will. IIRC, the grafted head was capable of drinking water, but I’m not sure. I think these photographs were in Life or Time or some such magazine. Maybe I dreamed the whole damn thing.

Here is a page with some collected links, including video of the dogs. You have been warned.

[Johnny_Hildo]

@Spit

Here is a page with some collected links, including video of the dogs. You have been warned.

Footage of the dog torso experiment can also be seen in the Julie Christie-narrated animals rights agitprop documentary The Animals Film.This movie used to play all the time on my local public access channel about ten years ago. I’ve also seen it in a video store or two. It’s one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever seen.

[VunderBob]

@Chief Pedant

This is not possible, so they must have been talking about a complete separation of a couple of vertebrae, or else the first vertebra with the skull–not a separation of the soft tissues…

An ‘internal decapitation’ is a type of cervical spinal fracture where there is no orthopedic tissue connecting the two sides of the fracture. The soft tissues are more or less intact.

I never want to have to deal with one in my future days as an EMT.

[Baldwin]

We can (imperfectly and temporarily) use technology to do what the heart, lungs and kidneys do, but when it comes to the liver, I think we’re screwed. Even so, I’m using the idea in a dark comedy (in which, through the miracle of the Internet, somebody who’s always wanted to pare a human being down to a disembodied brain meets somebody – well, someone – who’s always wanted to be a disembodied brain).

[Khampelf]

@alterego

That patent is the first thing I thought of too…

It would, of course, be me to point out that patent is assigned to the
Dis Corporation.

SLK

[Emotionally_Unavailable]

@Beware of Doug

"Bodies are decapitated; heads are disembodied." –Spy magazine, ca. 1993, in reply to a letter complaining about the unannounced appearance in its pages of a “decapitated head”.

I’m sorry, I don’t have an answer to your question, other than that I suspect medical science could not keep a head minus its body alive.

sorry to be nitpickish, a body is decapitated, a head is severed.

[groman]

Can you move your face with a severed spinal cord? What movement and sensation is actually controlled through the spinal cord?

[Alive_At_Both_Ends]

@groman

Can you move your face with a severed spinal cord?

Since the facial nerve doesn’t go through the spinal cord, I’d say yes, you could.

Thanks to everyone for this discussion. It appears that medical science isn’t quite up to the task yet, but maybe one day. I’ll keep the guillotine handy and await progress.

[Argent_Towers]

@Johnny Hildo

There’s a book called If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive…Discorporation and U.S. Patent 4,666,425 which was written by a man who obtained a patent on a device which would theoretically do so. He never followed up on it.

I don’t trust any patent number that contains 666.

[WF_Tomba]

@Baldwin

Even so, I’m using the idea in a dark comedy (in which, through the miracle of the Internet, somebody who’s always wanted to pare a human being down to a disembodied brain meets somebody – well, someone – who’s always wanted to be a disembodied brain).

There’s a Roald Dahl short story that you really should read–I forget what it’s called, but it’s in the anthology Tales of the Unexpected.

[Pushkin]

@Spit

Here is a page with some collected links, including video of the dogs. You have been warned.

Seems like it wasn’t just the head but two forelegs as well (just for good measure one imagines) :dubious:

[Spit]

@Pushkin

Seems like it wasn’t just the head but two forelegs as well (just for good measure one imagines) :dubious:

I ran across a pic yesterday of just a puppy head coming from the side of a grown dog’s neck. They even had before and after shots of the puppy running around when he had a body.

I’ll try to check my history and see if I can find it.