A neuroscientist has claimed that the first ever human head transplant could take place in 2017.
According to New Scientist, Sergio Canavero, from the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, who first proposed the idea in 2013, wants the surgery to be used to help extend the lives of people who have suffered degeneration of the muscles and nerves or those who have advanced cancer.
Mr Canavero said he would expect the patient to be able to move and feel their face when they awoke, they would speak with the same voice and they should be able to walk within a year.
The first successful head transplant, involving moving the head of one monkey on to another, was carried out in 1970 at the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, US. The monkey lived for nine days, but its immune system rejected the head.
