The Dark side of Science: The 1970 Monkey Head experiment (Short Documentary)

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Do you think this experiment was unethical let me know in the comments!

In 1970 Robert J white, did four experiments in which he cut the head off of a monkey and connected the blood vessels of another monkey head to it

The surgeries were known as the Monkey Head experiment, and set out to see the feasibility of human head transplants.

We also look over a brief history of Head transplants in general.

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Sources:

White et al c1971

Motherboard documentary

[yurt]

This isn't what they meant when they said return to monkey

[D_Isnt_Real]

>Decapitates man
>Expects noble prize
>Gets life in prison
>Sadge.jpeg

[nameofthegame]

Imagine waking up without any sensations because you’re just a brain outside your body.

[chibbersthesquirrel]

What's nightmarish about this, to me at least, is to imagine what must be going on in the monkey's thoughts. From what I understand of it, it sounds like the body itself wasn't being kept alive by the brain's signals to the muscles, but rather by mechanical processes which kept the lungs and heart working. So this isn't so much of a "head transplant" as it was hooking a head up to what was essentially a biological machine that kept it alive. The body it was hooked up to was little more than a life support system that kept the brain active.

But think about this for a second... that means that the monkey's brain would be trying to tell it to do the things it normally would, but it wouldn't be able to. It would try to breathe, but it has no lungs with which to take a breath. It would try to move, but it's not actually connected to the muscles of the body, so nothing would happen. It could just... observe its surroundings and respond to stimuli on its face.

That sounds like hell.

[mariomario]

Imagine you are about to get brain surgery and you're scared, and the surgeon says "oh don't worry, i once did a head transplant, this will be super easy"

[michaelbaker]

Scientist 1: “I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU TO...”

Scientist 2: “Wait, say that part one more time”

[spjmrlahey]

"The 1970 Monkey Head experiment" is an excellent name for a punk band.

[cooltop]

Imagine waking up and having a stranger's head attached to you, or you attached to a stranger's body. Or waking up and not having a body at all. Can't imagine what those animals were going through

[dry]

"an unethical experiment?"
Rats and mice: First time?

[ASHERUISE]

The worst part is the grafted brains. How would it be like just being a brain without any sensory organs?

[lilpthebasedpoque]

"the surgeries were a success, but the dogs died after 2 days." that... does not sound like a success.

[Nikki]

Honestly, the dog experiments freak me out more. Not just because it involved dogs, but because thinking about how either dog must have felt is horrifying. Imagine waking up with a stranger attached to your body or waking up as a disembodied head attached to another creature. It's the stuff of nightmares.

[casbyness]

The key problem with this branch of medicine is that even the most recent attempts to make progress don't even bother trying to re-establish any sort of nervous system connections. They can just barely reconnect essential blood supply and combat immune system rejection, so far they aren't even trying to link up sensory connections.

It's like firing manned space flight missions into orbit before you've figured out how to pressure seal the interior of a cockpit. First we need to figure out how to repair spinal cord injuries properly, THEN we can think about brain/head transplants in extreme circumstances.

[vintagefalcon]

I don’t think “totally evil” and “for the greater good of mankind” are mutually exclusive unfortunately.

[berry]

Man this is gonna sound fucked up but it's pretty amazing how bodies can sorta just do that. It's pretty weird to think that all of those eldritch masses of flesh seen in horror media could in theory be done with enough trial and error. Curiosity is a dangerous thing.

[whitedragoness]

Actually the monkey doesn’t look afraid, just borderline between life and death and as if it’s not fully aware of what the heck is going on and I hope it didn’t have long term memory functions

[tommo]

Incredible. The rate of success here is staggering. Sounds like something out of a horror film though!

[InceRumul]

Dog: man's best friend.
Man: lol, ima make a double doggie.

[olivecool]

i like how the title says “an unethical experiment???” like it was a rare thing in the 70s

[legowoshi]

Imagine being a conscious brain without any link to sensory organs or anything that's actually horrific. No nerves or breathing or hearing just alive but nowhere.