Off with their heads? Theres life but not as we know it, says RICHARD MADELEY – Express.co.uk

New head on old shoulders? Maybe that should be old head on new shoulders; it sort of depends on whether youre the donor or the recipient.Heres how its going to work. Its 2030. Lets say youre dying from organ failure, or terminal cancer, or congestive heart disease. As long as your brain and spinal column are unaffected, you could be first in line for one of the new head transplants.

Surgeons will take your head and spinal cord as a single entity, remove them from your doomed carcass, and attach it to a donor body.

Bruce Mathew, a former clinical lead for neurosurgery at Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, is currently a specialist in hyperbaric medicine, which treats divers suffering from the bends.

But hes been doing some serious thinking about heads and spinal cords, based on his previous surgical experience.

And he reckons there is a perfectly achievable way to transfer someones consciousness to another body.

Initially, I was just brainstorming what seemed like a rather silly idea, he says.

Then I realised that, actually, it isnt. If you transplant the brain, and crucially you keep it and the spinal cord together well, its not impossible. With modern technology, you can do most things.

For example, at the moment surgeons can connect one or two nerves but with robotics and artificial intelligence, Mathew believes infinitely more is possible.

Well soon be able to do 200 nerves so you could take off the spinal column and you could drop the whole brain and spinal cord into a new body.

Therell need to be some advancements but it will probably happen within the next 10 years.

Blimey.

This could usher in a whole new black market trade in providing donor bodies to order.

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Off with their heads? Theres life but not as we know it, says RICHARD MADELEY - Express.co.uk