Chapter 10 Section 7

Early the next morning, Ms. Orange came and said that Dr. Tang Yuan had called me. "It seems to have something important." Her smile was meaningful. When I came to the corridor, she walked forward without saying anything, and I followed helplessly.She stopped in front of the dissecting room, knocked on the door, and heard the doctor say "come in". This is the first time I have entered the dissection room. This is not a place for examination and treatment, but for processing data obtained through various methods.Seventy percent of the space in the room is occupied by computers and related machines, and the remaining thirty percent is occupied by desks and shelves.Dr. Tang Yuan is writing something on the desk inside.

"It will be over soon, sit in that chair and wait for me." The doctor said while writing. I looked around, opened the folding chair against the wall and sat down. "Teacher, what about me?" Miss Orange asked. "Oh, you go out first." I looked around the room, wondering if I could find anything related to me, but I saw nothing but slips of paper with numbers with unclear meanings on the wall. After waiting for nearly ten minutes, he said to himself: "Okay, it's done." He put the materials he had just written into a big kraft paper envelope, sealed it carefully, and looked at me with a slight smile: " This is a message for an American friend. A trustworthy person, my good advisor.”

"Is it about my information?" "Of course." He turned the swivel chair towards me, "Come here a bit more." I picked up the folding chair with both hands, put the chair against my buttocks, and moved it in front of him. "Come on," he rubbed his hands, "let's ask your purpose first, what are you looking for in the middle of the night?" I stared at his face and leaned back in the chair. "You still know." "You left traces in front of the cryogenic storage." It's vomit. "Sorry for messing up the floor."

"Apologize to Xiaoju about this, she was the one who cleaned it." "I will." I nodded and sat on the back of the chair. "I left the room because I was thirsty. I wanted to drink canned coffee, so I went out to find a vending machine." "Canned coffee?" He looked surprised. "Yes, just last night, for some reason I really wanted to drink..." "Well," he crossed his fingers, "but there isn't one here?" "No. Not to mention vending machines, there is nothing...not even an exit." "exit?" "Yes, the elevator is out of service, the stairs are covered with shutter doors, and the emergency exit is locked. I have no idea why this happened." I emphasized a little.

He pursed his lips in embarrassment, but it was only for a moment, then he immediately recovered his calm expression, and said soothingly: "About this point, I must explain it to you slowly. I have to say it in order from the beginning, but the beginning It's really difficult to explain. I have to tell you someday, but when is the question." "It doesn't matter anymore," I said, "tell me everything, from the beginning, all. What I got hurt, what kind of situation, and..." I swallowed a few times, "my brain...how Yes, tell me everything." "Well," he lowered his eyes, crossed his hands and released them, and then looked at me again, "Have you opened the vault?"

"Yes." I replied, "I also looked at the box with the initials JN on it." "I told him not to post initials." He smacked his tongue, "It is enough to write the recipient, because you are the only one in the world, but Ruosheng is surprisingly serious about this." "What is donor consciousness?" I asked. "Please explain." He paused for about two seconds, then raised his index finger, and then picked up the random pile of newspapers on Zhuo and handed them to me: "You should read this first." I took the paper and opened the sports page—as is my habit.I haven't looked at the typeface for a long time, it's a bit dazzling.Seeing the professional baseball team I support lose makes me pout.

"Not the sports page, look at the front page," he said. I closed the paper to read the front page, and the first thing I saw was a little report in the corner about the stock market's instability.Then I slowly moved my eyes to look at the large photo in the middle.It was a photo of three men holding a press conference, and the one in the center was Dr. Tang Yuan.There is a big caption on the photo - "Brain transplant operation successfully completed". I read the title repeatedly like a ruminant, and while thinking about the meaning of the word "transplant", I raised my head and asked, "Brain transplant?"

"That's right." He nodded slowly, 'Look at the report. " My gaze returns to the newspaper. "The world's first adult brain transplant operation started on the evening of the 9th by Professor Tang Yuan of the Department of Neurosurgery of Dongwa University, and was successfully completed at 10:25 p.m. on the 10th after about 24 hours. The doctors said Patient A (24 years old) is still in a coma, but after two or three days, the brain function is expected to start to recover..." The blood in my body seemed to start to flow backwards, my whole body was hot, my heart beat faster, and the blood vessels behind my ears were throbbing.

"A is me?" He blinked instead of nodding. "Transplantation... Is someone's brain transplanted into my head?" "yes." "It's unbelievable," I sighed, "that a brain can be transplanted." "Don't think of the brain as something special. Like the heart and the liver, it evolved from a single cell over a long period of time. Christians would say that everything was created by God." "But... the brain is special." "The analogy of a machine is a computer. The parts that fail can be repaired, and sometimes parts can be replaced. Are you not an expert in mechanical repair? You can't simply give up because the heart part is damaged—no, the heart part is easy to confuse, it should be called central part."

"I thought it was a story from a science fiction novel." "Recent science fiction is more advanced, and brain transplantation is nothing new. In 1917, a scholar named Dan tried to write a report. In 1976, it was clearly recorded that part of a newborn black mouse Brain transplantation to adult black mice survived. Afterwards, brain transplantation technology developed in various ways, and in May 1982, human brain transplantation was performed in Sweden for the purpose of treating Parkinson's syndrome." "So early?!" I made no secret of my surprise. "It's only a low-level stage. Instead of transplanting part of someone else's brain into the patient's brain, I just transplanted part of my accessory kidney to the caudate nucleus of the brain. There is no obvious curative effect, but the patient has no abnormalities, and the symptoms are slightly mild. improved. Since then, as a treatment for aging and aging phenomena, brain transplant research has begun to take shape. Just recently, there have been successful examples of transplantation of the frontal cortex in patients with learning disabilities, which proves that the 1984 black rat experiment Confirmed technology can also be applied to people."

"But here," I pointed to the newspaper, "it says the first in the world." "It's true to talk about adult brain transplants." He said, taking the folder on the desk and opening it, "The previous brain transplants used fetal brain slices, because the academic circles believed that if the nerve cells lose their ability to divide, the nervous system will not be able to function properly." Normal connection. This view is correct, but based on various studies since then, it has been proposed that adult brain transplants are theoretically feasible—this is good news, but in reality, there are many cases where adult brain transplants have to be performed.” "Am I one of them?" "That's right," he nodded. "It is necessary to explain the condition you were sent here. The bullet entered the right back of your head and came out from the right front, that is to say, it pierced through." I swallowed hard.But he had a normal expression: "To be honest, I thought there was no hope for a cure at the time. We speculate that even if you save your life, you may not be able to recover your consciousness, but the part that directs the internal organs is not damaged. In layman's terms Say, we reckon you'll be in a vegetable." "It's miserable!" "If you were me, you would feel the same way in the situation. However, after examining your head, I realized that if a miracle happened, you could be saved. A miracle is having a brain that suits you at hand. .I'm sure you're the type to be saved with a brain transplant." "You mean I'm not too badly hurt?" "Nonsense!" He stared, "Your injury is serious no matter how you look at it, but the damage happens to be the part that has been proven to be successfully transplanted during the animal experiments." "Animal testing stage," that means it has not been tried on humans. "There are no patients with my condition so far?" "countless." "But there hasn't been a transplant yet? Why?" "The conditions are not complete." The doctor said with a gloomy expression, "Countries that are currently committed to brain transplant research are eager to try whenever they have the opportunity, but they do not have the conditions, so it has not been realized so far." "What are the conditions?" "The problem of the donor, that is, the brain provider. It is difficult to get a timely and fresh brain. Even if there is, there is also the problem of matching." "Matching refers to blood type or something?" "That's just one aspect. Compared with other projects, Bei is just a low-level problem." He stretched his right arm forward, "We have to start with the nerve cells. There are many types of nerve cells in the human brain, which can also be said to be Personality. It can be affirmed that there are no two people in the world whose nerve cells are completely identical. When considering the possibility of transplantation, our point of view is that as long as 26 items match, it is considered qualified. There will be no rejection. Those who meet this condition , one in a hundred thousand." "One hundred thousandth..." I sighed. He went on to say: "If this ideal brain cannot be obtained, we believe that as long as half of it, that is, thirteen items match, it can be transplanted, but rejection must be prevented. This situation can be found in 200 people. One." It is much closer to reality, but it is not surprising that there is only one in two hundred people, which is unprecedented. Just now he said that if the right brain is found, this "miracle" will happen, and it is true. "That is to say, you found a brain suitable for me?" "Yes. Two hours before you were brought here, a patient died of a heart attack. We checked his brain, and a miracle happened." "Heart death...is a dead man's brain..." "It can't be helped, you can't take the brain of a living person, can you?" indeed so. "How about matching?" He stared at me intently, took a deep breath and said, "Twenty-six." "what?!" "Yes, twenty-six, all the items for judging whether it can be transplanted are consistent, a miracle of one in 100,000." I am speechless. "Honestly, we were worried that the procedure would take some time. This is the first adult brain transplant, and it's also a question of whether the donor's brain was taken just hours after his heart stopped beating. A question. And, of course, there was no way to get your consent at the time. We convened an emergency deliberation committee, and we were worried that the conservative views might be in the majority. However, the meeting was over in a short while, because there was no other way to save you, and there was no other way to save you. Yes, everyone does not want to let the one-in-100,000th miracle slip away, and this kind of consciousness has worked. Besides, this is a long-lost topic at Donghe University." "What a great attempt." Hearing what I said, he nodded happily: "That's right." I rubbed my head again—there is an unbelievable crystallization of miracles there, no, I can realize this, which is itself a crystallization of miracles. "I think, you have seen the contents of the two glass boxes in the preservation library last night, and there should be two slices of brains in them." "Soaked in a liquid similar to culture fluid." "That's a special preservation solution. One is the donor's brain, the part needed for the transplant was removed, and the other is your damaged brain slice, both of which are preserved as specimens." I felt sick again, but not enough to throw up. "The above is about your operation. What's the problem?" I crossed my arms and looked at his feet.I understand, but I can't really feel what I just said happened to me anyway.He said just now that it was like replacing mechanical parts. Can you really think so? "Even if I want to ask... I can't ask." I shook my head. "If it was the heart that was shot, and someone else's heart is transplanted, you will probably be able to accept the fact easily. As I said just now, there is no need to regard the brain as a special organ." "The donor...I want to know about the person who gave me the brain." The doctor frowned and puffed up his cheeks. "Can't you?" "It's pretty much a secret. We don't tell the donor's family who the brain was transplanted to. That being said, it's easy to find out just by looking up the patients who were brought to the hospital that day. You really want to Know?" "It became part of me and I wanted to know." He touched it, hesitated for a moment, tapped the table with his hand, and said, "Okay, but no rumors are allowed." "clear." He took out the key from his pocket, opened the bottom drawer, took out a book from the overstuffed file folder, flipped it open, and handed it to me. The name is written on the top of the file: Tokio Sekiya.Twenty-two years old, student, parents alive. "Encountered a traffic accident, was caught between a car and a building, and died as soon as he was sent to the hospital. We contacted his relatives and found that he had registered for organ donation, which meant that he was willing to provide organs or certain parts of his body after death. Some of them are used for transplantation, so we investigated the brain matching of the two of you." I sigh.Thinking of the countless luck that has made me who I am now, my whole body is full of strength unconsciously. "I want to go to his grave to worship and thank him." He shook his head: "This is not possible. The potential problems of brain transplantation are huge, one of which is what a 'person' is. Until this problem is solved-probably not within this century-the original owner of the brain should not be asked .” "What is 'individual'?" "One day you will understand." He said, "You can see from the reports in the newspapers that even your name is not disclosed. This is an agreement with the media until people can understand brain transplants correctly." "Is there anything misunderstood?" "Misunderstanding... Should it be called misunderstanding..." He avoided my eyes, hesitated to speak, "If it's a complete misunderstanding, it's fine. Assuming people have souls..." "Soul? Is there a world after death?" I relaxed my cheeks slightly, but instead, his expression became serious. "Not to be taken lightly. There are many people in the world who believe in the existence of the soul, saying that it controls the body. But those who think so are not strongly opposed to brain transplants, because they believe that the brain is also controlled by the soul." "Does it not matter what part of the body becomes?" "That's right. In fact, the so-called soul is just an illusion—here lies the importance of the problem." He looked at me and coughed, "I won't say much about this, you are not ready yet." "I won't be surprised to hear anything, please tell me." "I will talk about it when the time comes. Talking about it now will only confuse you. In short, I hope you can understand that there are many issues to be solved. As for whose brain is transplanted into whose head, this issue has not yet been clarified. .” His tone became unfriendly, which dissatisfied me, but I didn't press. "We forbid the media to contact you on the condition that they provide them with information on your recovery status. There have been two guys who ignored this agreement and tried to sneak in here." "That's why the entrance and exit are so tightly sealed?" "The purpose is not to lock you up." I nodded and returned the relevant information of the brain provider to him: "By the way, the newspaper says the team of doctors, what other doctors are there?" "There are also people from other universities who came to support us. In this university, we are the only ones involved." "Please send my regards to the other doctors and pass on my thanks." "Sure." His eyes were wrinkled with countless fine lines, "Is there anything else you want to ask?" "The last question, how did the surgery end up? Can it be said to be a success?" He leaned comfortably on the back of the chair, and his words were full of confidence: "You should know this best yourself."