Dr. Sergio Canevero, a member of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, claims that it is now possible to perform full human head transplants after recent medical advancements regarding the reconnection of surgically severed spinal cords surfaced.

Canevero's assertions were published in the journal, 'Surgical Neurology International.'

"It is my contention that the technology only now exists for such linkage," Canevero wrote in the paper "....[S]everal up to now hopeless medical connections might benefit from such a procedure."

This procedure has been unsuccessfully performed in animals for the past 40 years. Surgeons haven't been able to connect the spinal cord of the head to the donor's body, which results in paralysis from the neck down.

Canevero has mentioned a full human head transplant procedure that is similar to Dr. Robert White's - a neurosurgeon well-known for his head transplants in living monkeys.

For a successful human head transplant, both the donor and recipient have to be in the same room and the donor's head must be cooled between 54.6 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, surgeons must quickly remove both heads at the exact same time and attach the new head to the recipient's body and circulatory system within one hour.

Once the surgeons attach the new head, the donor's heart can be restarted. And then they can continue to rejoin the head to the body's spinal cord and to other critical systems.

Canevero said that cutting spinal cords with an ultra-sharp knife and using robot-assisted microsurgery to guide the nerve endings are vital to the procedure. He said polyethylene glycol (PEG) - a membrane fusion substance - would ease the re-connection of the two spinal cords.

"It is this 'clean cut' [which is] the key to spinal cord fusion, in that it allows proximally severed axons to be 'fused' with their distal counterparts," Canevero wrote. "This fusion exploits so-called fusogens/sealants....[which] are able to immediately reconstitute (fuse/repair) cell membranes damaged by mechanical injury, independent of any known endogenous sealing mechanism."

The cost of the procedure is estimated to be around $13 million. This type of procedure cannot be used in patients with spinal cord injuries.