Personality Transplants By Roger Dobson
"New study shows how organ swap patients can take on traits of
donors."
It has frequently been dismissed as an urban myth, but ground breaking
new research has revealed that people who have organ
transplants can inherit the habits of their donors.
In one case, doctors in America found that a man who received a
woman's heart underwent a number of stark personality changes,
including a new passion for the colour pink.
The patient could not explain his sudden love for the,
colour previously a shade he hated nor his newly acquired taste for
womens perfume.
And in another case, doctors discovered that a woman who received a
heart and lung transplant developed cravings for food she had
previously disliked. 'On leaving the hospital she had an
uncontrollable urge to go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and
order chicken nuggets, a food she never ate,' said the research
'Interestingly, uneaten chicken nuggets were found in the jacket of
the young male donor when he was killed.'
They also found a 29yearold woman who changed from being gay to
heterosexual after she was given the heart of a teenage girl, and a
47yearold woman who developed an unusual childish giggle after
receiving the heart of a 14yearold gymnast. When the team of
researchers quizzed the girl's parents, they found
that she had the same kind of giggle when she was alive.
The research, published last week in the Journal Of NearDeath Studies,
was conducted by Professor Gary Schwartz, Professor Paul Pearsall and
Dr Linda Russek, of the universities of Arizona and Hawaii.
They interviewed a number of recipients of transplants, as well as the
families of those who had donated the organs.
The doctors say that one explanation is that memory and learning is
not restricted to the brain, and that other cells in the body also
have the ability to store information so-called cellular memory.
As a result, they claim, some people, who receive organs can inherit
some of the history of the donor that is stored in the cells of the
transplanted tissue.
The scientists, who are now embarking on a second, bigger study
involving more than 300 transplant patients, dispute claims that
the changes can be explained by the drugs used in the surgery or
through the stress of the operation.
"Historically, transplant recipients have been reluctant to share such
experiences with their physicians, and in many cases, even their
families and friends," said the report, which also concludes that some
recipients may be more susceptible than others.
Most likely to suffer changes of personality were patients who had
undergone heart transplants, the study found as in the case of a
47 year old man who suddenly developed a passion for classical music
after his operation.
Unknown to him, the music was also the favourite of the teenager whose
heart he acquired.
However, recipients of kidney, liver and other organs also reported
alterations in their sense of smell, food preferences and emotions,
the report claims.
Schwartz is professor of psychology, medicine, neurology and
psychiatry at the University of Arizona. Pearsall is clinical
professor in the nursing department at the University of Hawaii, and
Russek is assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University
of Arizona.
Daily Mail (UK), Sunday, 20th January '02
--
Rado
Religion and science are opposed ... but only in the same sense
as that in which my thumb and forefinger are opposed - and between
the two, one can grasp everything.
- Sir William Bragg
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