Can organ transplants affect your personality?

[Beowulf]

(This isn't really a political story, but we don't have a general news section here.)

What do others think about this phenomenon? Maybe Praetor and Happeh have some ideas.

From http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/dailystar/63240.php

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Some heart recipients report strange changes
Say they sense traits, tastes of organ donors
By Carla McClain
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 02.27.2005

For most of her life, the young woman hated sports.

And though she was born and raised in Tucson, she never liked Mexican food. She craved Italian and was a pasta junkie.

But three years ago, all that changed for Jaime Sherman, 28, when she underwent a heart transplant at University Medical Center, after battling a heart defect since birth.

"Now I love football, baseball, basketball. You name it, I follow it," said Sherman, a psychology student at Arizona State University. "And Mexican food is by far my favorite."

She'd heard similar stories - of people who get donor hearts, develop new and surprising tastes and traits, then trace them to the donor. It's an eerie phenomenon that has triggered controversy and skepticism.

Could it be happening to her?

No scientific evidence exists to explain how characteristics of an organ donor might live on in the person who gets their organ. But theories and speculation abound, from the transforming power of beating a death sentence to the notion that the body's cells store memory.

Some blame the toxic effects of potent transplant drugs and heavy anesthesia, while others cite the psychological trauma of knowing someone had to die to save a life.

But even the self-described skeptics admit there may be more to this than imagination, though they insist it happens to a minority of patients.

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[Lucifer]

well, if it were to be a brain transplant, i dare say it might affect your personality.

[McGiver]

what about the penis organ.

if a man got a bigger one i bet you 10 to 1 that he would be more cocky.

[purposefulinsanity]

what about the penis organ.

if a man got a bigger one i bet you 10 to 1 that he would be more cocky.

groan 

[McGiver]

IYHO
take a poll to see if you are in a minority.  i suspect that i am the wierd one.

[Happeh]

(This isn't really a political story, but we don't have a general news section here.)

What do others think about this phenomenon? Maybe Praetor and Happeh have some ideas.

From http://www.azstarnet.com/dailystar/dailystar/63240.php

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Thanks! I collect those stories. It is people or doctors or the medical establishment refusing to accept reality because it does not fit their world view, or it scares them. I especially liked this part

"The heart is a pump and no more - it is not capable of emotional transfer," said Patti Cook, 68, who got her donor heart at UMC in 1989, and is president of the New Heart Society, a statewide support group. "I've seen this stuff on TV, but I think some people need their 15 minutes of fame. I don't think the idea holds credibility."

The woman has to say this. Otherwise she will go nuts. If she really believes that a piece of somebody else is inside of her body, she will go crazy. Did you ever see those movies like the Two Headed Man where they do a transplant and the implanted organs take over the body they are implanted in?

Organ transplant is wrong. Those people who donate kidneys? They are crippling themselves for life. Those doctors are lying to them or they do not know what they are talking about.

[Peter]

How about blood transfusions, Happeh?  Are they ok?

[El]

How about major surgery which is life-changing in some way but removes and does not add an organ?  I'd imagine that any major life event could trigger some cognitive restructuring from a nonbiological perspective.  Or perhaps the anasthesia somehow fucked up the brain chemistry of that woman.

You take any two people off the face of the earth and I'd be surprised if they didn't have odd things in common.  And example I can give here:

Show me any ten people in jail and I'll bet you at least eight, probably nine and possibly ten of them all had one thing in common as infants.

Ready for this?

It'll blow your fuckin' mind.

They all drank formula or milk.

I'm a fuckin' magician.

[Happeh]

How about blood transfusions, Happeh?? Are they ok?

I don't really know. I know that it personally gives me the willys. I don't know if I would have a blood transfusion or not.

[Postperson]

I thought there was such a thing as 'cell memory'. Am i wrong?

[Peter]

I thought there was such a thing as 'cell memory'. Am i wrong?

Depends what you mean by 'cell memory'; if you mean it in the mystical sense, then no, there appears to be no compelling evidence for that, however cells do respond to stimuli, and the changes persist through time for some limited duration, so in that sense, cells could be said to have a memory, though not much more advanced than the memory a piece of iron has of being hit in the form of dents in the surface and shock-patterns in the crystals.

[Postperson]

mm I had to have ultrasound on my back a few years ago because of chronic pain from a lifetime of bad posture, and it was as though my back's (muscles I suppose) memory had been erased. I could stand up straight effortlessly which I couldn't have done before. It seemed to me that my bad posture was 'learned', which it is, sort of but to have it change that quickly from a quasi medical procedure was strange.

[Peter]

Maybe it was a psychosomatic problem, and the treatment made you sufficiently aware of the area concerned to stop your nerves from constantly tensing the muscles?  Kind of like how they treat people with spinal injuries; they stimulate the muscles they want to repair the nerve connections to so that the nervous system can relearn how to activate and control them.

What do you mean by an ultrasound 'treatment' though?  Isn't ultrasound a purely diagnostic scanning technology?

[Lucifer]

nope.  they use it to disintegrate gall stones and kidney stones, and that sort of thing.

there is one "interesting" (i'm being kind) theory, which suggests that joshua and his trumpets COULD have knocked down the walls of jericho, using sonic waves = ultrasound.

you live and learn, eh? 

[Peter]

I'd fogotten about the kidney stone thing.  Still would be interested in how it's used for back problems though.