Historical Overview of Neuroregenerative procedures: The Search for Frankenstein

Introduction: Central nervous system transplantation is viewed as the final frontier of transplantation. Prior attempts have failed to achieve this goal. In this review, we explore previous neuro-regenerative experiments.

Methods: Online databases PubMed, Cochrane, Embase, Web of Science and Scopus were queried for search terms including ‘Transplant’, ‘Spine Transplant’, ‘Brain Transplant’, ‘Xenotransplant’, ‘cephalosomatic anastomosis’. Duplicates, non-full text articles, abstracts were excluded from the results. 7 surgeons met the inclusion criteria for this review.

Results: Charles Guthrie and Alexis Carrel, performed the first canine head transplant where a decapitated head was transplanted onto the neck of another canine. The recipient head demonstrated aural, visual and cutaneous reflex post-procedure prior to physiological deterioration. Gordon Murray conducted spinal cord resection and anastomosis in 3 human patients as reported in panminerva medica. Resecting fibrous damaged tissue in serial sections till viable spinal cord was found on frozen section, vertebral column osteotomy was then performed. Dr. Murray reported improvement in motor function . Vladimir Demikhov conducted 20 canine head transplants, transplanting heads of a smaller canine onto a larger canine with a maximum survival of 29 days. Robert J white transected rhesus monkeys between C4-C6 and created large vessel anastomoses loops prior to transplantation. Survival lasted for 6-36 hours with ability to chew, swallow and bite intact . Ren Xiao-Ping conducted cross circulated head transplantation in 60 Wistar rats where donor rat was transferred onto the neck of the recipient rat for an average survival period of >36 hours. Sergio Canavero conducted a transplant of the monkey onto another monkey with little success. Of late, fusogens such as polymer-surfaced silica colloids are increasingly used to restore injured mammalian spinal cord

Conclusion : Neuro-regenerative procedures have yielded minimum long-term success in trials. Future research including fusogens and preserving neuronal function can be utilized to maximize outcome.