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Old 09-05-2007, 05:10 AM
David Bailey David Bailey is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 1,067
Default Transplant memory - a related phenomenon?

Now that there are many people alive and well after receiving a heart transplant, there are some strange reports that sometimes some of the memories of the donor get transplanted too! For example,

The Book Of THoTH - ESP & PSI - Transplant Memory?

Some time ago, there was a program devoted to this phenomenon on UK TV. A few scientists supported the idea - pointing out that there is considerable nervous tissue in the heart - while others were skeptics.

Obviously, it must be hard to overestimate the change for someone when they wake up with a new, well functioning heart, after years (or even a whole lifetime) of disability. However, it would seem that sometimes very specific memories are transferred - such as a love of classical music. One lady described how she was chatting with friends as she recovered and said "Oh I do want to get out of here and have a beer". She had never previously enjoyed beer, but her donor had!

I do hope Joki will reply to this - because it is obviously in his area of expertise.

The aspect of this that I find fascinating is the transference of memories. The usual scientific explanation for memory is that they are stored in neural nets - the connections between neurons gradually adjust in response to repeated inputs, until a particular idea is stored. However, as I understand it, this is a statistical process, and you would not expect such a neural memory to make sense inside someone else's body. The fact that whole memories and like/dislikes of specific things can get passed this way seems to break the conventional 'understanding' of these matters.

David
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