astro
June 14, 2010, 2:45am
21
[quote=“WhyNot, post:17, topic:543002”]
Here’s one:Does changing the heart mean changing personality? A retrospective inquiry on 47 heart transplant patients.
Heart transplantation is not simply a question of replacing an organ that no longer functions. The heart is often seen as source of love, emotions, and focus of personality traits. To gain insight into the problem of whether transplant patients themselves feel a change in personality after having received a donor heart, 47 patients who were transplanted over a period of 2 years in Vienna, Austria, were asked for an interview. Three groups of patients could be identified: 79% stated that their personality had not changed at all postoperatively. In this group, patients showed massive defense and denial reactions, mainly by rapidly changing the subject or making the question ridiculous. Fifteen per cent stated that their personality had indeed changed, but not because of the donor organ, but due to the life-threatening event. Six per cent (three patients) reported a distinct change of personality due to their new hearts. These incorporation fantasies forced them to change feelings and reactions and accept those of the donor. Verbatim statements of these heart transplant recipients show that there seem to be severe problems regarding graft incorporation, which are based on the age-old idea of the heart as a centre that houses feelings and forms the personality.
So, if the vast majorty of patients are annoyed and tell you point blank that a scientifically preposterous question is absurd that’s “massive defense and denial”.
Why yes… that sounds like a* very* scientific conclusion.
WhyNot:
Which is intriguing, but not conclusive.
Think of it this way. Before surgery, Jack described himself as “intense, driven, hard-working and short tempered” After, he becomes “patient, loving, generous and kind.” What family mourning their loved one (the heart donor) wouldn’t agree that their dearly departed was all of those things? And, of course, simply knowing he agreed to be an organ donor, we can make some good guesses as to what kind of a person he was.
What I’d first like to see is a study comparing heart transplant recipients’ personality changes to other transplants, like lungs or livers or kidneys. Then I’d like to see a personality profile made of the donor and recipient before the procedure is done, and it should be a fairly rigorous one, not something as vague as a newspaper horoscope.
Please understand, I’m not tossing out the idea. It actually fits quite well with what I’ve studied in Traditional Chinese Medicine, where the Heart is the home of the Shen, or personal spirit, which is not quite the same thing as the consciousness, but definitely affects personality and emotions, especially joy and despair. I’m just saying we don’t have clear evidence to support the hypothesis yet.
Understand your point of view, WhyNot; and don’t disagree that personality changes within the range of the recipient would, and could be expected.http://hubpages.com/hub/Cellular-Memories-in-Organ-Transplant-Recipients
jjimm
June 14, 2010, 8:16am
23
I can’t believe I’m reading this on the SDMB. It’s kinda medieval.
bardos
June 14, 2010, 10:28am
25
i’m sure boris karloff starred in a film about this. i think all you needed was a lightening rod connected to each temporal lobe and wait for a giant storm. worked every time.
Ah yes bardos. The technique was further improved 50 years later by the aforementioned Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr.
6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast:
I would think that if brain transplants were viable, Alzheimer’s and tumors would not be an issue.
If we presume that Medical science has advanced enough that Alzheimer’s and tumors have been beaten, there’s a pretty good chance that the physical effects of aging have been solved as well.
6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast:
The only documented study I know of was done by foremost brain surgeon of the '80’s Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, involving his radical cranial screw-top technique.
His brilliant research in brain transplantation is unsurpassed, and will [del]probably[/del] make his name live beyond eternity.