Hafsa Daher
In 1997, Claire Sylvia wrote a book (1) about certain personality changes that she experienced after her transplantation. Even though she was a vegetarian, she had new-found craving for chicken nuggets, green peppers, and beer. Later on when she talked to the donor’s family, she was told that the donor loved them so much that he even had a container full of nuggets in his jacket when he was killed in a car accident.
In 2006, following a heart transplant William Sheridan (2) found that he was now able to produce beautiful drawings and landscapes, something he never imagined he could do before. And after talking to the mother of the donor, he found out that her son was a gifted artist.
After heart transplant surgery, so many recipients (3) like Claire & William believe that they have inherited new personality traits and were able to see changes in their food, music, sex, or even career preferences.
So how can we explain it? Are organs able to store memories (even skills) and transfer them from a donor to a recipient?
Researchers call this phenomenon “cellular memory”; where cells of a living tissue have the ability to store information like habits, interests, and even personality traits. Now when we think of memory, we think of the amazing ability of the brain to store massive amounts of information & the immune system’s rapid and effective response in fighting an antigen that the body has encountered before.
But if the immune cells like T & B cells can create memory cells that defend against specific pathogens, isn’t it possible that the body can store memories in other places and maybe transfer them to someone else?
There are some theories (4) that explain how cellular memories might work. These include epigenetic memory, DNA memory, protein memory, and RNA memory.
Now keep in mind that there’s a difference between transferred genes and transferred memories. We can prove that the DNA & RNA in cells can store and replicate genetic information and even memories passed down from our ancestors but not necessarily from an organ.
Researchers at the European Bioinformatics Institute (5) were able to encode all of Shakespeare’s sonnets & even an excerpt from the famous “I Have a Dream” speech by MLK into a synthetic DNA. It was then shipped from the US to Germany, where they were able to decode the DNA sequences and reproduce it with complete accuracy.
Experiments conducted on mice at Emory University (6) showed that a traumatic event can leave an imprint in the DNA of sperm. They trained the mice to sniff an odor and paired it with a mild electric shock until they learned to associate the smell with fear.
They found out that the offspring & even the grandchildren of the mice showed aversion to that same smell without ever being exposed to it before, something that is known as “trans-generational epigenetic inheritance”.
Even though DNA acts as a storage medium, it can’t store what’s your favorite junk food or how to draw a masterpiece. There are other more logical reasons (7) as to why people might feel like they are taking on the personalities of their donors.
Undergoing organ transplantation is a life-altering experience, and it is possible that these patients use their new-found health to try out new things and gain new experiences, something that they couldn’t do in their bedridden state.
And since they are taking many immune-suppressant drugs, it’s possible that these drug interactions can make them feel different. We already know that steroids increase a person’s food appetite which means more food cravings.
Even though only simple information such as gender, age and cause of death, is revealed to the recipient, they might be subconsciously influenced by the stories they heard during their hospital stay.
Another thing to take into account is that a lot of these are just anecdotal stories that have been collected to prove a hypothesis. So since we can’t rely on these subjective stories, which are one in a million, we need to see more thorough research done on the process of this memory transfer.
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