There is the standard joke—a man walks into his doctor’s office and is advised he needs a brain transplant. He is given two choices. One brain costs $50.00 and the other $10,000.00. The first belonged to a university professor. (The second belonged to a woman, a man, a Democrat, a Republican or insert your favorite target.) The punch line is the second is so expensive because it was unused. The recent, successful face transplant in France has raised again some interest in whether a brain transplant would be technically feasible and ethical in the future.
There are two types of transplants, one less probably than the other. The first is the so called whole brain transplant or if you prefer, whole body transplant where a whole brain belonging to A is transplanted into the whole body of B. There is not likely to be a lot of volunteers signing up for either part of this donation. Some time ago, Professor Robert White of Cleveland, Ohiosuccessfully attached the head of a monkey onto the body of another monkey, the combination of which remained alive for a surprising period of time. Since it is not now scientifically possible to regenerate nerve tissue, the achievement resulted in only keeping the head alive in a circulatory sense.
The idea of brain transplant is apparently a popular conception of Raëlism, a religion that apparently holds to the tenet that mankind was created by a group of scientifically advanced extraterrestrials called the “Elohim,” who created life on earth through genetic engineering. The Raëlists believe that immortality can be achieved through a combination of human cloning and “mind transfer.” Raëlism is alleged to be popular in Miami, Las Vegas, Chicago, Los Angeles, France and Quebec. You may draw whatever conclusions you like from the locations of its devotees.
The second kind of brain transplant is here with us today. It involves the transplantation of aborted fetal tissues or stem cell tissues into a brain in the hopes of regenerating damaged brain tissues. The principal areas of research with respect to this kind of transplant involves efforts to ameliorate the effects of such disease as Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s diseases. While some of the research in this area holds promise—there are a gauntlet of ethical issues in the way starting with the basic concern that relying upon the harvest of aborted fetuses raises obvious moral and practical concerns. The use of stem cell tissues are somewhat more broadly palatable; but have other concerns regarding the need to stimulate growth and the overall efficacy of these kind of starter cells. Perhaps an answer lies in the potential to de-differentiate adult cells into stem cells similar to embryonic cells by activating genetic “switches.”
The use of “stem” surgery on a control group of brain tissue implant patients in clinical studies raises its own ethical issues. That patients should not be harmed is the first principal of the Hippocratic Oath.
Another issue is whether brain tissue implantation should be used to effect or alter human characteristics that are “hard wired” into our brains. The research of Evan Balaban, a professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, has been experimenting for many years with the cross species implantation of brain tissues in embryos. See Lucentini, “Brain Swapping Comes of Age,” The Scientist, March 9, 2006, pp 1-3. He is famous for his cross species implantation between chickens and Japanese quail resulting in a migration of behavioral changes such as chickens who bob their heads like quail when crowing or chickens that prefer quail sounds more than quail do. This research seems to suggest that many behavioral characteristics of animals are hard-wired into the circuitry of the brain. As more knowledge surfaces as to the functioning and characteristics of brain circuitry, the prospect of behavioral modification through brain tissue transplantation suggests that the frontiers of an Orwellian future have been barely plumbed.
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