The procedure was first proposed in 2013 by Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero, who said the surgery could assist those with degenerative muscular and nerve issues as soon as 2017.
A successful head transplant was completed on a monkey in 1970 by a surgical team led by Robert White of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, but the procedure did not attempt to join the spinal cords, so the monkey could not move its body. Such challenges, Canavero said, will soon be surmountable.