[user104658]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

How can you transplant a head but not a brain?

Assumed this would be head brain and all.

Obviously it is the head and brain but different from just a brain transplant as you would still have your own face, which is the majority of most peoples physical "sense of self".

Brain transplants scare the **** out of me if they ever end up happening, given your entire personality is in your brain. So if someone else gets a brain transplant, you are basically still alive and them dead, just you are using their body :S

Well the person at the end of it would obviously be the "brain" part, that's the life they would go back to as much as possible (friends, job etc...) rather than a stranger "driving" a body and taking over that life. I guess it's easier to think of it as the "brain owner" getting a body transplant, rather than a body having a brain transplant? Like even in the "real" story in the OP it's more "first ever full-body transplant" rather than "head transplant".

The rest of the body, when it comes down to it, is just machinery to keep the head/brain alive and let it interact with the world.