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.

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[sizzle.d]

when you fall asleep first in a sleepover (rookie move)

[shadowhound]

The mice were alive for a day but what state were they in. Screaming in pain and a vegetable is not really alive.

[plaguedoc]

I don't even want to think how much pain and suffering those mice went through.

[englishwithdamoon]

Guess you could argue it's cruel but, how cool is it that mice could survive for an entire day in another mices body

[chaokontunmoplang]

1000 surgeries performed In the hope of making us immortal and all the mices died after 1 hour after suffering from extreme pain😂😂😂

[SCP--wcwb]

And you can’t show any of the 1000 mice actually moving because they were all failures, but were seen as a success in the eyes of the insane.

[burntbeansoup]

That should be considered illegal and unethical... we are most definitely not there in science yet.

[TeWzy]

Lived for a day? Guess playing God isn't working

[Mcthindi]

Are the trying to say,
Mice has sufferd for day?

[Itz_Eyeden]

Is it some kind of electrical wiring class?

[Ganbre]

Death be like:you guys cannot defeat me give up💪😎

[baladar]

That doctor transplanted heads, but you couldn't make proper sound for your video. Anyways, not everyone was made equal, that's sure.

[Mac-ee]

Hey Chinese doctor; Could you please tell me how can I create a Mutated version of Rabies which can make a human behave like zombies?

[leapinglizzards]

DR JECKEL, leave up to the Chinese to perform monstrous things. Like positioning the WORLD