Odd subject title, but on Johny Walkers drive time show on Radio 2 yesterday, a psychologist was interviewed.
Basically his research shows that in some cases, the organ recipient takes on the charachetristics of the donour.
He focused on a small group who had been receiveing psychological treatment post translant. They reported personality changes which when investigated further could be coroberated by co-workers, friends and familly who noticed this change in persona.
When these people were introduced to the donours familly, they confirmed the recipient had taken on many of the donours trait.
One such case was a girl who was a strict vegetarian. After her heart transplant she craved McDonalds burgers, especially Chicke McNuggets. The guy whos heart she received died in a motor cycle accident and in the pockets of his leathers were un-eaten McNuggets.
Go to the BBC Radio 2 web site;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/
and click on listen again and select Johny Walker, the interview was at about 17:20.
Could our sight take on some of the donours characteristics?
What do you think?
Transplants and donours personality
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Gareth,
You just reminded me of some wierd conversations I have been having of late.
1. a friend wondered what I will be like if I have a murderers eye
2. the wife asked if I ended up with a womans cornea would that make me bisexual
3. my boss took great delight in telling me about a dodgy horror film he has seen where a hand is transplanted and the recipient took on the personality and turned into a psycho with an axe.
4. my brother wondered if a gay eye might make me domesticated
So some sane answers to your question would be appreciated as I don't have long left to change my mind!
Paul
You just reminded me of some wierd conversations I have been having of late.
1. a friend wondered what I will be like if I have a murderers eye
2. the wife asked if I ended up with a womans cornea would that make me bisexual
3. my boss took great delight in telling me about a dodgy horror film he has seen where a hand is transplanted and the recipient took on the personality and turned into a psycho with an axe.
4. my brother wondered if a gay eye might make me domesticated
So some sane answers to your question would be appreciated as I don't have long left to change my mind!
Paul
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jayuk
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Gareth
Id be inclined to believe this now.....as I really do think that we dont know near enough what we think we know about the human body and how things truely work at the cell level!
All we seem to be good at is providing resistance and medication against specific drugs, but do not know the implications to the whole body!..and I guess similarly this would apply to adding external tissue to a host !
J
Id be inclined to believe this now.....as I really do think that we dont know near enough what we think we know about the human body and how things truely work at the cell level!
All we seem to be good at is providing resistance and medication against specific drugs, but do not know the implications to the whole body!..and I guess similarly this would apply to adding external tissue to a host !
J
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Andrew MacLean
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Paul Osborne wrote:Gareth,
You just reminded me of some wierd conversations I have been having of late.
1. a friend wondered what I will be like if I have a murderers eye
2. the wife asked if I ended up with a womans cornea would that make me bisexual
3. my boss took great delight in telling me about a dodgy horror film he has seen where a hand is transplanted and the recipient took on the personality and turned into a psycho with an axe.
4. my brother wondered if a gay eye might make me domesticated
So some sane answers to your question would be appreciated as I don't have long left to change my mind!
Paul
1 Wasn't there a song about this "Looking through Garry Gilmour's eyes"
2 Or maybve transgendered
3 At lease eyes don't do axe weilding, but imagine if you suddenly started looking at the Daniel O'Donnel cd's in the mega store!
4 Or worse. You could get the cornea of a dedicated lad and take to leaving half drunk cans of lager around the floor.
Like I say, it's all rather scary. But on the up-side there is very little exchange of tissue between a grafted cornea and the host body. I'd hve thought that a standard blood transfusion had more potential to influence the recip[ient than a cornea transplant.
Andrew
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Paul Osborne
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Andrew MacLean wrote:
1 Wasn't there a song about this "Looking through Garry Gilmour's eyes"
2 Or maybve transgendered
3 At lease eyes don't do axe weilding, but imagine if you suddenly started looking at the Daniel O'Donnel cd's in the mega store!
4 Or worse. You could get the cornea of a dedicated lad and take to leaving half drunk cans of lager around the floor.
Like I say, it's all rather scary.
Andrew
1. ooh I may have to look that up
2. well that could be interesting, wonder how my faith would stand on that or how the wife would feel about it
3. oh dear no, not that, please not that
4. thats a worse thought than 3. being the ale drinker that I am
hee hee
Paul
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If i was a gambling man I would say across the whole body....like a spiders web......covering the whole body.....and then when we no longer exist in the mortal coil, it moves to the other dimension to continue its existence....
J
J
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Andrew MacLean
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Gareth
The ancients were persuaded that the soul lived in one of the blood-rich organs of the body. They thought the brain entirely unimportant, dragged it out through the nose of the corpse being mummified and disposed of it.
Hearts, livers, spleans etc were carefully stored in jars decorated with rich paints and preacious stones.
In the Christian era the association between body and soul has not been such a bone of contention (excuse the unintended pun). In deed, it is not clear that the soul resides so much IN as in association with the physical body.
The question of presence and identity has, therefore, been less of an issue for all the peoples of the book as for the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
To all intents and purposes the Christian doctrine of the self would sit very happily with Gilbert Ryle's rejection of the idea that there is a 'ghost in the machine'. Indeed I think this may be why the writers of the New Testament and the Church Fathers were at such pains to stress the importance of the Christian notion of "Resurrection Bodies" as opposed to "immortal souls".
There is, of course, a limit to the amount of weight that you can put on any metaphor, and St Paul openly acknowledges this when he writes (in 1 Cor 15 35)
But someone may say, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come back?" You fool! What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies.
In time the proposition, 'I am my body' may hold good but then when we start dismantling it we find that there are weaknesses there, too. If my leg is removed, am I still me. I think so.
If my spleen is removed, am I still me? Again, yes.
If my eyes are removed, is my identity constant? Yup!
For most of the 20th century it was a commonplace that the identity of the person was in some way associted with the brain. I think that this notion still has some power, but I was struck by the story of the conjoined twins who were joined at the head and shared much of their brain. They were, none the less, quite different people.
I think you can account for the changes in personality following a transplant in a number of ways: people may just be overwhelmed by the extra lease of life.
Still the story makes for a wry smile and has entertained us for a bit.
Andrew
The ancients were persuaded that the soul lived in one of the blood-rich organs of the body. They thought the brain entirely unimportant, dragged it out through the nose of the corpse being mummified and disposed of it.
Hearts, livers, spleans etc were carefully stored in jars decorated with rich paints and preacious stones.
In the Christian era the association between body and soul has not been such a bone of contention (excuse the unintended pun). In deed, it is not clear that the soul resides so much IN as in association with the physical body.
The question of presence and identity has, therefore, been less of an issue for all the peoples of the book as for the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
To all intents and purposes the Christian doctrine of the self would sit very happily with Gilbert Ryle's rejection of the idea that there is a 'ghost in the machine'. Indeed I think this may be why the writers of the New Testament and the Church Fathers were at such pains to stress the importance of the Christian notion of "Resurrection Bodies" as opposed to "immortal souls".
There is, of course, a limit to the amount of weight that you can put on any metaphor, and St Paul openly acknowledges this when he writes (in 1 Cor 15 35)
But someone may say, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come back?" You fool! What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies.
In time the proposition, 'I am my body' may hold good but then when we start dismantling it we find that there are weaknesses there, too. If my leg is removed, am I still me. I think so.
If my spleen is removed, am I still me? Again, yes.
If my eyes are removed, is my identity constant? Yup!
For most of the 20th century it was a commonplace that the identity of the person was in some way associted with the brain. I think that this notion still has some power, but I was struck by the story of the conjoined twins who were joined at the head and shared much of their brain. They were, none the less, quite different people.
I think you can account for the changes in personality following a transplant in a number of ways: people may just be overwhelmed by the extra lease of life.
Still the story makes for a wry smile and has entertained us for a bit.
Andrew
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