CNS neuroscience & therapeutics
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The criterion of personal identity is clearly called into question by the project to perform a human head transplant. Is identity provided by psychological continuity alone, or does it depend on bodily continuity as well? And how do these different perspectives interface with our notion of mind and mind-body relationship? The reader will be provided with a discussion concerning these problems, together with a philosophical and literary survey about the conception of body-mind relationship from the Greek thought to contemporary philosophy. ⋯ On the contrary, the general perception of identity is subject to significant alterations resulting from one's cultural environment. However, the cultural environment itself can be changed by particularly notable events, such as, hypothetically, the successful outcome of a human head transplant.