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The surgeon who has been dubbed 'Dr Frankenstein' as he plans the world's first human head transplant wants to 'reanimate' corpses using electricity, it has been revealed.

Earlier today Professor Sergio Canavero told Good Morning Britain he intends to operate on terminally ill Valery Spiridonov in December 2017.

While speaking to Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, Canavero claimed that if successful, the surgery would transform Mr Spiridonov's life. But Piers accused the neurosurgeon of taking huge risks with his patient and compared his work to that of the fictional Dr Frankenstein, who created a monster from body parts.

In an article for the Surgical Neurology International, the controversial doctor and his colleagues in South Korea and China also made comparisons to the story of Frankenstein, where electricity is used to reanimate the monster.

(Image: Good Morning Britain) (Image: Good Morning Britain)

Dr Canavero and his team said: "A fresh cadaver might act as a proxy for a live subject as long as a window of opportunity is respected (a few hours).



"It also implies that the process of deathly disintegration is not an immediate process. We name this effect the 'Frankenstein effect'."



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Writing in the Surgical Neurology International, Canavero - who has been experimenting on animals and claims to have reattached a dog's spine - also said that once the surgery is successful it will get the medical and scientific communities and any doubters on board.

He said: "While of course these results are in need of duplication, there can be no doubt that this new batch of data confirm that a spinal cord, once severed, can be refused with useful behavioral recovery.

"Despite these exciting animal experiments, the proof of the pudding rests in human studies."

(Image: Rex Features)

(Image: ITV)

Meanwhile, the doctor defended his work and claimed that there was little risk that his patient would die.

Professor Canavero said: "We all agree that 90% is the chances that Valery will survive the operation. "There is a plan. We will do the surgery on brain-dead donors first."

GMB's Dr Hilary Jones also interjected with his concerns that the patient was mobile, had use of his arms and was able to breathe on his own. "I'm worried the donor body could reject the head," he added.

The professor, who was speaking by videolink from Italy, said: "This doctor doesn't know what he's talking about. It's going to work."

He said that he had been planning the surgery for 30 years.

The head transplant will take around 150 hours and involve 36 medical staff. Presenter Charlotte Hawkins described how medics would then "freeze the head and the body in order to stop the brain cells from dying".

She added: "The neck would then be cut and the tubes connecting the key arteries will then be fitted.

That is when they cut the spinal cord with a fine blade to minimise the damage.

"The head would then be moved on to the spinal cord and glued together using a special kind of glue.

"Then it would be a race against time to re-attach all of the remaining muscles and organs."

The patient would be kept in an induced coma for up to a month for the body to repair itself. Professor Canavero claims that Mr Spiridonov will be able to walk within 12 months.

Mr Spiridonov, 31, was also on the show and explained why he had decided that a head transplant was his only option.

The terminally ill patient said: "My current condition is pretty heavy. I cannot take care of myself, I cannot walk, I need constant assistance. I think this technology will be good enough and safe enough to use on humans."

Mr Spiridonov said that he was not frightened. "We're trying to make it as safe as we can," he said. "We're doing lots of tests."

Piers asked the patient if he trusted the professor with his life.

"It's not a matter of trust, it's a matter of research," Mr Spiridonov said.

The computer programmer, from Vladimir in Russia, suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman disease - a rare genetic muscle wasting condition he has had since he was a baby.

He revealed what he would like to do with his new body. "Go on a ride with a sports bike," he said.