# How difficult to keep a severed head alive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 24, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074 "2003-02-24T03:11:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/1 "2003-02-24T03:11:50Z")
If you hook up a severed head to a heart & lung machine, would it keep the head alive and conscious for a short time? What technological breakthroughs are necessary to keep it alive longer? I know it’s impossible with current technology, but it’s got to be easier than the “brain transplant” discussed in another thread, right? ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/2 "2003-02-24T03:33:45Z")
From what I’ve heard, the sheer shock of recieving such odd messages (What? There’s no lungs?) would effectively make the head… well, braindead. If it were possible to straighten out the messages (and lack thereof) being sent to the brain, I’m pretty sure that would help. All of this information, of course, is only what I’ve heard. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/3 "2003-02-24T04:03:09Z")
I suggest you read the novel _That Hideous Strength_ by C. S. Lewis for an interesting take on this idea. It’s about a secretive organization whose top boss is called “The Head.” Suffice it to say that they meant that job title quite _literally_. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/4 "2003-02-24T04:05:31Z")
Well, [this book](http://www.loompanics.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/cgi-local/smpagegen.exe?U+scstore+hvdg6059ffd7a3d7+-c+scstore.cfg+-p+91076) was supposedly written by a guy who’s done it with monkeys. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/5 "2003-02-24T04:17:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tuckerfan \* > \*\*Well, [this book](http://www.loompanics.com/cgi-local/SoftCart.exe/cgi-local/smpagegen.exe?U+scstore+hvdg6059ffd7a3d7+-c+scstore.cfg+-p+91076) was supposedly written by a guy who’s done it with monkeys. \*\* Interesting. I tend not to trust scientists who publish results in their own books rather than peer-reviewed journals, but the _Nature_ cite on that page may be worth looking up. I’ll see if I can dig it up later. Anyway, I guess what I was really asking is, if the immediate needs of oxygen and circulation are met with a heart/lung machine, and if you can provide glucose (?) to the blood, what’s the next thing that will kill the head? If the blood supply is the problem, would continuous blood transfusions do it? And **clayton\_e** , by “messages” do you mean nerve signals, or do you also need other chemical “messages”? ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/6 "2003-02-24T04:22:24Z")
Ummm…whose head were you thinking of trying this out on, **scr4**?? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/7 "2003-02-24T04:33:21Z")
A severed head would of necessity be a vampire. That is, in the absence of significant bone marrow, it would require a constant supply of fresh compatible blood. If you refreshed the blood often enough, you might be able to get around needing a liver for detoxification. Oxygenation, pumping, nutrients and even some hormones could probably be handled with current technology. However, the immune system would go to hell too, so you’d probably have to keep the head in a germ-free bubble. ---
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/8 "2003-02-24T04:34:04Z")
I must admit I’ve often wondered this myself. It doesn’t seem like it would be that hard to do. Just ensure oxygenated blood is being supplied through the aorta…seems simple enough. ---
**Author:** ![porcupine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@porcupine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/porcupine)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/9 "2003-02-24T04:40:06Z")
[They Saved Hitler’s Brain](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0265870) Despite the film’s title, they did, in fact, save his entire head. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/10 "2003-02-24T05:08:14Z")
Well, as long as it is not the head of the girlfriend, and you don’t have a monster in the closet… 😃 This reminded me of something I read before and I wish there would be more confirmation; however, it sounds serious: [http://www.clevescene.com/issues/1999-12-09/putre.html](http://www.clevescene.com/issues/1999-12-09/putre.html) > [@](#): > > There was a dog with two brains. In the 1960s, White and his surgical team attached an isolated brain to the blood vessels on a dog’s neck, to see if they could get the second brain up and running while its normal brain was still intact. They could, proving that the brain was an “immunologically sound” organ – that, unlike a kidney, it could be transplanted without likelihood of the body rejecting it. > > But the dog brain was really just a warm-up act for the monkey head. In the 1970s, after a series of extensive experiments, White performed the first successful brain transplant on a primate, surgically attaching one monkey’s head to another monkey’s body. When the newly attached monkey woke up, he tried to bite off the finger of an attending doctor, and everyone cheered. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1263758.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1263758.stm) > [@](#): > > A controversial operation to transplant the whole head of a monkey onto a different body has proved a partial success. > The scientist behind it wants to do the same thing to humans, but other members of the scientific community have condemned the experiments as “grotesque”. > > Professor Robert White, from Cleveland Ohio, transplanted a whole monkey’s head onto another monkey’s body, and the animal survived for some time after the operation. That last report appeared in 2001, can we verify if this doc still around? I guess if someone would eventually try to this in a machine, this will be person to ask first. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/11 "2003-02-24T06:17:03Z")
You might try these threads, for resources… [How much of my body can I live without?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=127179&highlight=brain) [On the subject of decapitated heads and Soviet experimentation](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=122287&highlight=brain) And kudos and huzzah to **GIGObuster** for mentioning Dr. White. It’s always nice to meet a fan of the good doctor’s work. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/12 "2003-02-24T06:17:15Z")
Could you get around the blood supply need if you’re willing to remove the brain from the head and maintain cerebrospinal fluid? You could, conceptually, increase the `blood-brain barrier’ to the size of the entire apparatus, feeding glucose and oxygen directly to the cerebrospinal fluid. I don’t think cerebrospinal fluid has any cells or structures above the molecular level, so recirculation through a (probably as-yet uninvented) system shouldn’t do as much damage to it as a dialysis machine does to whole blood. But that would be a good way to induce a psychotic break: We know enough about complete isolation to know that it induces hallucinations of all kinds, as the brain cannot deal with a lack of input. A brain kept alive in a machine as described above would totally lack any sensory input (or, for that matter, output), creating something even worse than the Matrix. When your `reality’ has been reduced to the voices in your head, your mind begins to weave an existence out of nothing at all. (As extra credit, prove you aren’t a victim of the above experiment. Platonists need not apply. :D) ---
**Author:** ![Tony\_Montana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/278dde/32.png) [@Tony\_Montana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tony_Montana)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/13 "2003-02-24T06:27:27Z")
Oh, dont forget about leaving a fresh bowl of yak stubble for the severed head fairy… ---
**Author:** ![beajerry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@beajerry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beajerry)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/14 "2003-02-24T17:10:46Z")
Just ask how they do it with GW Bush. The technique’s been perfected quite a bit since Reagan, I would think. ---
**Author:** ![Trigonal\_Planar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/0ea827/32.png) [@Trigonal\_Planar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trigonal_Planar)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/15 "2003-02-24T17:40:33Z")
Actually the lack of sensory input is what causes dreams. With no external information to generate a “sense of world” the brain turns to internal sources of information. Now, if the person whose brain is being kept alive is familiar with lucid dreaming, it might a dream come true, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![clayton\_e](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c57346/32.png) [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/16 "2003-02-24T18:14:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by scr4 \* > \*\ ***Clayton\_e** , by “messages” do you mean nerve signals, or do you also need other chemical “messages”? \*\* I only heard about the nerve signals, I’m not sure how the chemical messages (or lack therof) would affect the brain. I’m reasonably sure (again, only my opinion) that it would be easier to “fake” the balance of chemicals than it would be to keep the nerve signals up and going. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/17 "2003-02-24T18:37:38Z")
Boring weekend ahead? ---
**Author:** ![rhinostylee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bc79bd/32.png) [@rhinostylee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rhinostylee)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/18 "2003-02-24T19:51:23Z")
This is the coolest. I’ve never wondered this, but it sure does rule. I’ve heard that after you chop someone’s head off they are still conscious for a few seconds. Anyone know this to be true? ---
**Author:** ![lno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a8b319/32.png) [@lno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lno)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/19 "2003-02-24T19:58:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by rhinostylee \* > I’ve heard that after you chop someone’s head off they are still conscious for a few seconds. Anyone know this to be true? [Cecil says so.](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html) ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-difficult-to-keep-a-severed-head-alive/157074/20 "2003-02-24T20:01:16Z")
Of course it’s difficult supplying oxgyen and circulating blood around a severed head, but on the plus side, they don’t eat much.