Has anyone ever tried a brain transplant?

[Aerozord]

Obviously not the whole thing, but like there are times parts of the brain are damaged and operations involving removing part of the brain. Has anyone ever tried replacing those parts with a donors? Is there some taboo about such a procedure?

[Arcanum]

So there's this crazy site called google. (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=brain+transplant)

Which can bring you to this equally crazy site called Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_transplant)

There's also this article about someone who wants to do a head transplant. (http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/head-transplant-volunteer-might-face-fate-more-terrifying-death) In fact there are dozens of articles about that, but I just grabbed the one.

[Aerozord]

Thats not really what I mean, I meant something that would mean taking part of a brain and attaching it to someone else's. I didn't simply google it for two reasons. First is google wouldn't have answered whether or not there was a taboo about it. If there was some fundamental ethical concern in the medical field about a procedure that might keep the patient alive but destroy who they are as a person.

Second reason I didn't google it. Would be nice to spark some discussion and encourage the sharing of knowledge around here instead of this growing mindset in our culture to just tell people "google it yourself" which I think is unhealthy and discourages people from the practice of asking other human beings questions. So when given the option I'd rather ask a human a question and discuss the answer as opposed to consulting a search algorithm.

[Arcanum]

Thats not really what I mean, I meant something that would mean taking part of a brain and attaching it to someone else's. I didn't simply google it for two reasons. First is google wouldn't have answered whether or not there was a taboo about it. If there was some fundamental ethical concern in the medical field about a procedure that might keep the patient alive but destroy who they are as a person.

Well, you'd be wrong, but okay. (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=brain+transplant+ethics)

Second reason I didn't google it. Would be nice to spark some discussion and encourage the sharing of knowledge around here instead of this growing mindset in our culture to just tell people "google it yourself" which I think is unhealthy and discourages people from the practice of asking other human beings questions. So when given the option I'd rather ask a human a question and discuss the answer as opposed to consulting a search algorithm.

Your initial queries read as simple questions for information, not questions with a goal of sparking a discussion. So I provided the information that it seemed like you were asking for, as I doubt there are many people on NPF with an in-depth knowledge of Neuroscience.

It's like asking "does anyone know if they play hockey in Africa?" That kind of information-focused question isn't the best for creating discussion.

But anyway enough of that, might as well give my opinion on the subject since I'm already here.

Given that we understand practically nothing about how consciousness and personalty are created from the firing of millions of neurons and their ever-changing connections, we have two options. Option 1: we consider brain transplants a taboo operation due to the unknown consequences and refrain from performing them until there is a comprehensive understanding of the human brain and consciousness. Option 2: we use brain transplants as an experiment to help us better understand the human brain and consciousness. The consequences of option 2 will then spark numerous ethical debates depending on what happens upon a successful transplant.

I'm more in favor of option 2 (as long as its with volunteers) as that seems like it will lead to faster progress in the field.

But in the end all we can do is discuss hypotheticals because there's no way to know of the procedure will " destroy who they are as a person" when we don't even fully understand what makes us who we are as people in the first place.

[phil_]

It has been difficult, recently, for me to formulate original thoughts rather than repeat what other, smarter people have to say. So I've put some effort into this, Aero. It doesn't look like it, but I did.

I don't think there's any point in implanting donated brain tissue. Your brain already has the plasticity to partially recover from having bits of it cut out or destroyed. Otherwise we wouldn't be doing procedures that involve excising brain meat (trans-orbital lobotomies, etc., yeah I know; it was a not entirely heinous idea at the time).

The brain is complicated. And it's not complicated like a heart, where a Rube Goldberg machine of biological pathways and anatomical structures result in the relatively simple mechanical action of regularly pumping blood in one end and out the other. The brain is more like a Rube Goldberg machine that produces new, unique Rube Goldberg machines and where part A that acts upon part B is usually located in a different building. Continuing that metaphor, implanting donor tissue would be like selecting a chunk of a different Rube Goldberg machine squared based on spatial closeness rather than functional relatedness, then dumping that into the hole of the first machine: the donated machine is just a non-functioning pile of parts missing their inputs and outputs that fills in a hole that the original machine can build a new machine to bridge. Or, for those with less patience for convoluted metaphors than myself, you're just filling in a brain hole with dead brain meat that's only going to force the patient to eat antibiotics for the rest of their life. It's not going to replace the pathways the surgeon broke because those pathways are super tiny, super intricate, and unique to the patient in their fine details; more likely the support cells of the original brain are just going to see foreign crud and try to break it down.

If you really need your patients' brains to look like those brains in all the fashion magazines post-surgery, research into improving and accelerating plasticity and remodeling make more sense than tracking every axon going through the part to be excised (reminder that it took six years to scan every cell in a 1,500 µm cube of mouse brain for that paper from the end of July (http://www.nature.com/news/crumb-of-mouse-brain-reconstructed-in-full-detail-1.18105)), scrambling and unscrambling donor tissue to exactly match that, then using nanomachines and magic to fuse donor and host tissue at the cellular level to perfectly recreate the original network.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I think the important question is as follows - can I put my brain into a robot body and will this let me transcend death.

[phil_]

I think the important question is as follows - can I put my brain into a robot body and will this let me transcend death.No no no, the real question is "Will Mayuri be able to resurrect Nemu with that chunk of cerebrum he grabbed from her exploded corpse?" And the answer is yes, because ghost magic.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I don't even read Bleach anymore so I have no idea what any of that means but I mean, its Bleach, so odds are that Nemu was actually Aizen who had Momo standing in his place and only Ichigo can reach Super Hollow Saiyan 7 in order to defeat him?

[phil_]

There was some Quincy science-doctor or something that showed up out of the blue (or who I just forgot about a year ago, who knows?) to mock Cap'n Surgery for not knowing his science baby would die from being killed this chapter. So yeah, whatever in perpetuity. You're pretty much on the money.