By Addison Chrivia, Editor
It’s the time of the season that everyone gives away their hearts, without stopping to think of how it will affect them. Of course, falling in love with someone can change your life entirely but, more surprisingly, a heart transplant can cause you to have a personality shift. Organ donation recipients have reported changes in mood, hobbies, sexuality, favorite foods, and even memories.
One patient, Claire Sylvia, received a heart transplant and reported her favorite colors swapped from bright reds to cooler tones and that she had an inexplicable craving for foods she had never enjoyed before. Claire’s new heart led her to fast-food chicken nuggets, the same kind which were a favorite of the donor, so much so that they were found in his pocket when he died.
Another example is when a twenty-five-year-old man received a heart-lung transplant from a twenty-four-year-old lesbian artist, who specifically loved painting landscapes. The recipient reported that he felt he had an “internal transsexual surgery.” His girlfriend reports that now he is a much better lover, who enjoys shopping and holding her purse for her. He also uncharacteristically began to love going to the art museum, where he spends hours staring at landscape paintings.
After receiving the heart of a fourteen-year-old girl, the forty-seven year old recipient reported more childlike behaviors: giggling, jumping around, and getting more excited about simple things. Additionally, the donor had issues with eating, to the point of purging and being referred to as anorexic. After the transplant, the recipient started to struggle with similar issues, like feeling nauseous after meals, and his brother noted him throwing up after Thanksgiving dinner, despite the fact that no one else was sick.
Of course, a certain amount of the change can be attributed to the life-changing experience that led to needing an organ transplant. Being that close to death would be hard for anyone to live through without changing. In addition to that, people make up ideas in their heads about what the donor might have been like in order to feel close to someone who saved their life. The desire to know their donor could cause them to change their personality subconsciously.
But, interestingly enough, there have been testimonies from organ recipients in which they retain memories from the donor. One boy talked about the child who donated his heart, mentioning his love for Power Rangers but how he no longer likes them; the donor died falling out of a window, reaching for his Power Rangers toy. Another example is a man who had nightmares after the surgery, featuring a bright flashing light, seeing Jesus, and a burning sensation in his face. The donor, Carl, was shot by a man with a beard, long hair, and deep eyes, not dissimilar to Jesus.
There have been a few hypotheses that provide possible explanations as to why someone’s personality may shift post-transplant. The first pertains to cellular or systemic memory, the concept that information can be stored in parts of the body, like DNA, RNA, and proteins. Systemic memory could be why these new personality traits and interests feel innate to some recipients. The other major hypothesis is based on the idea that information in the brain and energy are one and the same, meaning that neurons firing is equal to a thought. If an organ as large as the heart, which pumps the blood and manufactures the majority of the body’s energy, is replaced, it makes sense that the information would go with it.
So, how much of our personality and the things we enjoy are really biological? Do these cases prove that nature presides over nurture? Do we form our own biological processes around ourselves, so much so that the memory becomes ingrained in our very being to create an impact on those who might receive our heart? Or maybe it’s all just a psychological response to the trauma that one might experience from needing to have a heart transplant in the first place.
These little parts of ourselves that make up who we are have an impact, from your favorite chicken nuggets to how you giggle. When you love other people, you give them an important place in your life and allow them not only to change you, but to change themselves simply by being there. All of this is to remind you that what you love, how you love, and who you give your heart to matters.
Works Cited
Carter, Brian, et al. “Personality Changes Associated with Organ Transplants.” Transplantology, 5(1), 12-26.
Pearsall, Paul, et al. “Changes in Heart Transplant Recipients That Parallel the Personalities of Their Donors.” Journal of Near-Death Studies, 20, Mar. 2002, 191–206.
