Posts tagged NEVER FORGET

approachingsignificance: psydoctor8: COLLAR POPPIN, HEAD SWAPPIN Full post here. I’ll go with the mad scientist interpretation myself. Yes he gets credit for the surgeries he performed, publications, and brain cooling techniques (just like OJ won the Heisman and revolutionized college football), but this guy lost it a little. Rhesus monkey head transplants should not be allowed. Period. Mary Roach did a section about this in her book Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers (highly recommended). I know animal research isn’t a black and white issue, but this guy cut off two monkey heads, and tried to attach them to the other body! No, No, No. Try a different way. PsyDoctor8’s tags on this are hilarious. By our standards today, he lost it A LOT, also he was funded by the gov to come up with a solution before the Soviets did, so no pressure. And he severed way more than two in his 18 trials, but naturally the negative prevails in our memory, and usually for good reason. But things were different then kids, there were TWO GERMANYS! As a former animal researcher, I agree with you. However, we can all relax in the soothing glow of our iPads, that this type of experiment wouldn’t be condoned these days and it is these examples that helped create the standards we now exercise. I should have mentioned that since more than a few people wrote in about it. Labs that do translational neuroscience research these days are much more humane.  In Dr. White’s case, the ethics we now have in place that govern what & how animal research is carried out simply didn’t exist then and his lab wouldn’t get approval for this level of drastic experimentation to happen today. But just a few decades ago these things happened and not one eyebrow was raised… much like no one would’ve flinched at a medieval-time OJ (who’s football talents clearly didn’t save anyone). Meeting certain ethical standards, strict regulatory compliance and going through a rigorous IRB process similar to a human one has to be met. It’s certainly a debatable issue, I get it. Full disclosure- I did not do a thorough lit search on the effectiveness of rattle snake dancing, knitting for neurons or wishful thinking on neurological conditions, so it might be animals for a bit longer, guys. It’s a cross between “look how far we’ve come/look how crazy we were/look what’s possible” and a dash of “but at what cost” and “how do we do better” while patting ourselves on the back for being far more enlightened about ethical treatment of all subjects and the advances that have contributed to a better quality of human life.  Also? I’m having steak for dinner, so that, along with all this will just about upset 28% of you. image

approachingsignificance:

psydoctor8:

COLLAR POPPIN, HEAD SWAPPIN

Full post here.

I’ll go with the mad scientist interpretation myself. Yes he gets credit for the surgeries he performed, publications, and brain cooling techniques (just like OJ won the Heisman and revolutionized college football), but this guy lost it a little. Rhesus monkey head transplants should not be allowed. Period. Mary Roach did a section about this in her book Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers (highly recommended). I know animal research isn’t a black and white issue, but this guy cut off two monkey heads, and tried to attach them to the other body!

No, No, No. Try a different way.

PsyDoctor8’s tags on this are hilarious.

By our standards today, he lost it A LOT, also he was funded by the gov to come up with a solution before the Soviets did, so no pressure. And he severed way more than two in his 18 trials, but naturally the negative prevails in our memory, and usually for good reason. But things were different then kids, there were TWO GERMANYS!

As a former animal researcher, I agree with you. However, we can all relax in the soothing glow of our iPads, that this type of experiment wouldn’t be condoned these days and it is these examples that helped create the standards we now exercise. I should have mentioned that since more than a few people wrote in about it. Labs that do translational neuroscience research these days are much more humane. 

In Dr. White’s case, the ethics we now have in place that govern what & how animal research is carried out simply didn’t exist then and his lab wouldn’t get approval for this level of drastic experimentation to happen today. But just a few decades ago these things happened and not one eyebrow was raised… much like no one would’ve flinched at a medieval-time OJ (who’s football talents clearly didn’t save anyone). Meeting certain ethical standards, strict regulatory compliance and going through a rigorous IRB process similar to a human one has to be met. It’s certainly a debatable issue, I get it. Full disclosure- I did not do a thorough lit search on the effectiveness of rattle snake dancing, knitting for neurons or wishful thinking on neurological conditions, so it might be animals for a bit longer, guys.


It’s a cross between “look how far we’ve come/look how crazy we were/look what’s possible” and a dash of “but at what cost” and “how do we do better” while patting ourselves on the back for being far more enlightened about ethical treatment of all subjects and the advances that have contributed to a better quality of human life. 

Also? I’m having steak for dinner, so that, along with all this will just about upset 28% of you.

image

psydoctor8

COLLAR POPPIN, HEAD SWAPPIN You know me, I like to think how we are our brain and what that means in terms of who we really are and how far that goes. What if it could extend past death? What if we could keep the most precious thing about us going after the body gives out? Instead of loosing great thinkers and inventors, or loved ones… we could take what really makes them, them and just plop it in another body? A brain transplant. Well, this is no where near a novel idea.  Not so long ago in the 1970’s, Harvard trained neuroscientist/surgeon (specifically in hemispherectomy), Dr. Robert J. White was inspired by (or rather) competing with Russian surgeons and after a series of failed brain transplant experiments with monkeys, preformed the first successful head transplant. We all know organs can be harvested, and keep in mind the first successful kidney transplant was only in ‘54, so why not the brain? Theoretically, all you have to do is keep the brain chemically oxygenated & induce hypothermia during the surgery and mind those cranial nerves so the brain can see, hear, taste, etc when it’s in its new home. Ah, but that’s a problem - we need those cranial nerves in tact and since no one knows how to repair nerve damage, we need the whole head to come along. So, we are really talking about a head transplant. The next problem is severing the brain stem from the spinal cord leads to paralysis since they can’t be fused. But we’d still technically have our Einsteins, right? Well, not so fast. Although the rhesus monkey head transplant was a “success”, meaning the monkey was conscious and alert… he could think, see, smell, hear, taste and even showed aggression (with good reason even if they are naturally a bit cranky)… he only lived less than 2 days. Still, if you can ignore the ethics, it’s pretty amazing.  Dr. White… laid back.   Jan. 21, 1926 - Sept. 16 2010 Why this matters: While Dr. White is commonly remembered as an unethical monkey head swapping, mad scientist - it is also interesting to note he was a rather innovative neuroscientist who ”performed over 10,000 brain surgeries in his lifetime, authored more than 900 publications, and developed brain cooling techniques that revolutionized modern brain surgery. White even received the Humanitarian Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 1997.”  via, image, screen shot/video.

COLLAR POPPIN, HEAD SWAPPIN

You know me, I like to think how we are our brain and what that means in terms of who we really are and how far that goes. What if it could extend past death? What if we could keep the most precious thing about us going after the body gives out? Instead of loosing great thinkers and inventors, or loved ones… we could take what really makes them, them and just plop it in another body? A brain transplant. Well, this is no where near a novel idea. 

Not so long ago in the 1970’s, Harvard trained neuroscientist/surgeon (specifically in hemispherectomy), Dr. Robert J. White was inspired by (or rather) competing with Russian surgeons and after a series of failed brain transplant experiments with monkeys, preformed the first successful head transplant.

We all know organs can be harvested, and keep in mind the first successful kidney transplant was only in ‘54, so why not the brain? Theoretically, all you have to do is keep the brain chemically oxygenated & induce hypothermia during the surgery and mind those cranial nerves so the brain can see, hear, taste, etc when it’s in its new home. Ah, but that’s a problem - we need those cranial nerves in tact and since no one knows how to repair nerve damage, we need the whole head to come along. So, we are really talking about a head transplant. The next problem is severing the brain stem from the spinal cord leads to paralysis since they can’t be fused. But we’d still technically have our Einsteins, right? Well, not so fast.

Although the rhesus monkey head transplant was a “success”, meaning the monkey was conscious and alert… he could think, see, smell, hear, taste and even showed aggression (with good reason even if they are naturally a bit cranky)… he only lived less than 2 days. Still, if you can ignore the ethics, it’s pretty amazing. 

Dr. White… laid back.   Jan. 21, 1926 - Sept. 16 2010


Why this matters: While Dr. White is commonly remembered as an unethical monkey head swapping, mad scientist - it is also interesting to note he was a rather innovative neuroscientist who ”performed over 10,000 brain surgeries in his lifetime, authored more than 900 publications, and developed brain cooling techniques that revolutionized modern brain surgery. White even received the Humanitarian Award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 1997.”  via, image, screen shot/video.

Tediously and very meticulously mounting coronal cuts of avian brains onto slides, a million times over…looks like this. 

Tediously and very meticulously mounting coronal cuts of avian brains onto slides, a million times over…looks like this. 

scottfriday replied to your quote: Easily the greatest decision I’ve ever made….

i want to be part of this.

Good hustle Friday, your in.

Now, let’s see how far I can get with this idea before someone stops me. Keep in mind: the gold fish I won legit at a local shady carnival ring toss, on two separate occasions, did jump out of the bowl effectively committing suicide.

New research is blurring the species boundary, forcing us to rethink what it is to be human

Until a few years ago, making such inference and diagnosing elephants with PTSD would have been dismissed as anthropomorphism. But no longer. Elephant psychopathology, chimpanzee infanticide and other un-animal-like behaviors are part of a growing body of research that suggests science is building toward a radical paradigm shift. Streams of new data and theories, critically from neuroscience, are converging into a new, trans-species model of the psyche. Humans are being reinstated back into the species continuum that Darwin articulated, a continuum that includes laughing rats, octopuses with personalities, sheep who read emotions from the faces of their family members and tool-wielding crows.—Dr. Bradshaw

In other words, perhaps our complex psychology isn’t so unique after all. Not a new notion (as her reference to Darwin suggests) — but these disruptions of stable, “normal” behavior in chimps and elephants, and the way they are rooted in neurophysiology held in common, carries the message in a particularly provocative way.—David Dobbs