Organ Transplant Recipients Retain Donor Traits—Why?

Written by Dr. Yuhong Dong and Beth Giuffre on July 27, 2022. Posted in Current News

A 48-year-old New Englander named Claire Sylvia was dumbfounded when she suddenly developed a taste for junk food, beer, chicken nuggets, and motorcycles after her heart-lung transplant. This was not the same Claire her family and friends knew.

In Sylvia’s best-selling memoir, “Change of Heart,” she described her personal transformational experience and those of fellow donor recipients who paradoxically take on the personality traits of their donors. When Sylvia sought out the family of her donor, she learned that every new trait she had acquired came from the teenage boy who gave her a new heart and lungs.

Sylvia’s story was so remarkable it has become one of the most known transplant stories in the fields of both medical and energetic science.

Commenting on her book, author of “Quantum Healing” Dr. Deepak Chopra said, “This is a story that must be told and heard…a fascinating example of how cellular memory can outlive physical death.”

The story, and many like it, affirm the idea that there’s more to mind and body than molecules and matter. When we examine stories like Sylvia’s, we have one more layer of thought to examine and study.

The World Health Organization reported 5,400 heart transplants worldwide in 2008. In the United States 3,408 transplants were performed in 2018 and 73,510 people have received heart transplants in the United States in the last three decades. Those who study cell memory phenomena say those statistics indicate a large number of individuals have the potential to experience personality changes following heart transplantation surgery.

“Modern medicine has excellent understanding of the cellular structure and molecular level knowledge of human bodies,” said Dr. Yuhong Dong, infectious disease doctor and Swiss biotech company co-founder. “However, it is not the complete picture of the human body. Other than molecular structure, the human body has far more minuscule structure and particles which belong to the scope of ‘mind’ or ‘spirituality.’

Traditional Chinese medicine has elucidated that each organ of the human body—heart, kidney, liver, spleen, lung—has mind or spiritual level particles, but they are invisible to our human eyes. Cellular memory is possible and significant, and our body, mind, and spirit are as a whole.”

In 2009, Harvard Medical School defined biological cellular memories as “a sustained cellular response to a transient stimulus” in the brain. In order to form memories, the brain must wire an experience into neurons so the neurons can be reactivated and recalled. However, the current theory of cellular memory extends the theory that memories, as well as personality traits, are not just stored in the brain.

Due to insight into the field of science, we now know cellular memories may also be stored in major organs such as the heart, lungs, liver, or kidneys.

In addition to organs, we also have the science of energy and consciousness entering the discussion. We wonder how much of the memories are contained in the human body and mind, and how much is stored in the immeasurable matter known as “spirit.”

In Sylvia’s case, her donor was an 18-year-old boy who died in a motorcycle accident. He was known to have loved those particular foods so much that a container of chicken nuggets was removed from his jacket after the fatal crash. As soon as Sylvia could recover from the transplant, she drove herself to KFC to buy herself her newest love: chicken nuggets. Before the surgery, the former professional dancer was a health nut, so where could this new preference have come from, if not from her donor?

We first heard about Sylvia’s story in Bruce Lipton, PhD’s iconic book, “The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles,” when Lipton cited her story as supporting evidence for his belief that an individual’s broadcast is still present after death. Lipton believed psychological and behavioral memory make sense if we realize that the transplanted organs still bear the original identity receptors of the donor.

The cells download the same environmental information, and therefore become “immortal.” Yet despite being enamored by the infinite potential of the cellular membrane, Lipton felt cell memory can only be taken so far.

As one of the first cell memory philosophers, he wrote, “You know I have immense respect for the intelligence of single cells, but I have to draw a line here. Yes, cells can ‘remember’ that they are muscle cells or liver cells, but there is a limit to their intelligence. I do not believe cells are physically endowed with perception mechanisms that can distinguish and remember a taste for chicken nuggets!”

Yet, do we need to draw a line? What if the cell has such capabilities? And what if those capabilities leap beyond the cell and become more of an energy that follows a person?

Much has happened in the field of energetic science since Lipton’s book was published in 2005. Time after time, bizarre and strangely specific personality changes have occurred and have been documented after people receive a new heart, liver, or kidney.

How can one explain, post transplantation, the curious account of a die-hard carnivore now vomiting at the sight of meat, a lesbian suddenly only finding men attractive, and a 9-year-old who used to adore swimming in the family lake now deathly afraid of water—after we learn his heart transplant donor, a dear 3-year-old, died from drowning?

Empirical Evidence of Personality Changes in Organ Transplant Recipients

Though the practice of human to human heart organ transplant technology has been available since 1967, the earliest reported cases of personality changes were analyzed in 1988 by Paul Pearsall, Ph.D, nursing professor from the University of Hawaii; Gary Schwartz, Ph.D, professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, and psychiatry at the University of Arizona; and Linda Russek, Ph.D, assistant clinical professor of the University of Arizona.

As lead researcher, Pearsall had been collecting sporadic cases of cellular memory phenomenon throughout his professional career. He felt the need to author a report that provided both theoretical and empirical justification for conducting a controlled, comprehensive study. Until then, the stories were just coincidences and side conversations overheard in the doctor’s office. Pearsall felt the need to document these happenings.

Of the 74 transplant cases the authors chronicled and recorded, 23 were heart transplants. Pearsall observed heart transplant recipients seemed to be the most susceptible to personality changes. After interviewing the donor’s families and gathering information from the recipients and their families, the authors observed two to five parallels per case.

Parallels included changes in food, music, art, sexual, recreational, and career preferences, as well as specific perceptions of names and sensory experiences related to the donors.

In 2019, Mitchell Liester, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, offered an in-depth analysis of metadata and decades of stories. His paper, “Personality Changes Following Heart Transplantation: The Role of Cellular Memory,”  published in Medical Hypotheses, categorized personal accounts of donors and the changes they experienced. Many of the cases were from Pearsall’s interviews.

Liester found that the large body of empirical evidence of personality changes in organ transplant recipients included the same changes in preferences and memories from the donor’s life that Pearsall, Schwartz, and Russek discovered and found interesting. In addition, Liester added further analysis of alterations in emotions and temperament and modifications of identity.

Though the burden of proof is not easy to come by, we now have much more theory and hypotheses on cellular memory. Similar to near-death experiences, most cellular memory cases go unheard, as patients fear being discredited. Those courageous enough to come forward usually have no motivation other than to find support.

et recipients are not just manifesting these changes in their minds. As explored by Liester, transferring information by heart transplantation can indeed alter the recipient’s preferences, emotions, temperament, memory, and identity, with both negative and positive consequences. Those changes can range in scope from complete makeover of the person’s personality to a rejection of the organ and death. For this reason, he believes more study of these enigmatic cases is necessary to further understand the cellular memory phenomenon.

Many organ recipients in Liester’s studied cases began to like things they never liked before. They also began to do things they had never done before.

Changes in Musical Preferences

• In some cases, the change in preference was of a musical kind. For example, a 45-year-old who received the heart of a 17-year-old boy who used to put on earphones and blare loud music. Now, the 45-year-old picked up the same habit, something he said he would never think to do before the surgery.
• Another case is an 18-year-old girl who received a heart from an 18-year-old male musician who played the guitar and died in a car accident. She could never play music before, but now all she wanted in life was to learn to play the guitar. “I felt it in my heart,” she said. “My heart had to play.”
• “I used to hate classical music, but now I love it,” said a 47-year-old white, male foundry worker who received the heart of a 17-year-old black man killed in a drive-by-shooting. He assumed his newfound love of classical music could not have come from his donor due to his preconceptions of the young man. Yet unbeknownst to him, his donor was a talented musician who loved classical music more than anything. The donor’s mother said, “Our son was walking to violin class when he was hit…He died right there on the street hugging his violin case.”

Changes in Food Preferences

Liester learned food preferences could change after transplantation.

• For instance, a 29-year-old woman who called herself “McDonald’s biggest money maker” would vomit any time she ate meat after her transplant from a 19-year-old vegetarian donor. She said, “When I even smell it, my heart starts to race.”
• Another example comes from a 47-year-old man who, post-transplant, began feeling nauseated after eating. “I often feel nauseated and that it would help if I could throw up,” he reported. His donor was a 14-year-old gymnast with bulimic tendencies, who would skip meals and purge after she ate.

Changes in Sexual Preference

• After receiving their new heart, several recipients also described uncanny changes in sexual preference, completely reversing their gender preference. They now preferred the same preference as their donor.

Miscellaneous Preference Changes and Aversions

Liester described many cases where transplant recipients changed their preference for art and colors while some developed new fears.

• For instance, a 25-year-old male graduate student who would never think to go to a museum suddenly became an art fanatic after he received the heart of a 24-year-old female landscape artist. His girlfriend described her changed guy: “Now he goes to museums every week. Sometimes he stands for minutes and looks at a painting without talking. He loves landscapes and just stares. Sometimes I just leave him there and come back later,” she said.
• A 48-year-old female dancer whose donor was an 18-year-old man killed in a motorcycle accident changed her favorite colors from hot colors like red, pink, and gold to cool colors like blue and forest green. “Most men stay away from hot colors, as I now do,” she said.
• A 9-year-old boy who received the heart of a 3-year-old girl who drowned in the family pool developed an aversion to water following his transplant, despite knowing nothing about her death. His mother said they lived on a lake where he loved to swim in the water. After the transplant, he would not even set foot in the backyard because of its proximity to the lake. The mom said, “He keeps closing and locking the back door walls. He says he’s afraid of the water and doesn’t know why.”

Changes in Emotions and Temperament

Liester found that recipients may experience two types of emotional changes after heart transplantation: emotions they identify as originating from the donor or an adjustment in temperament.

• For example, the young boy did not know his donor was a 3-year-old girl who drowned at her mother’s boyfriend’s house under a babysitter’s care. He knew nothing about her. But the girl led a troubled life that included dealing with her parents’ traumatic divorce and further neglect by her father. After the boy’s transplant, he described the emotions of his donor as if she were sitting right there with him, “She seems very sad. She is very afraid. I tell her it’s okay, but she’s very afraid. She says she wishes that parents wouldn’t ‘throw away their children.’ I don’t know why she would say that.”
• Other recipients describe changes in overall temperament after receiving their new hearts. One person stated, “The new heart has changed me… the person whose heart I got was a calm person, not hectic, and his feelings have been passed on to me now.”

Changes in Identity

Liester said personal identity changes are the most studied in the field of cellular memory after transplantation.

• One 19-year-old recipient who received the heart of another woman commented, “I think of her as my sister. I think we must have been sisters in a former life. I only know my donor was a girl my age, but it’s more than that. I talk to her at night or when I’m sad. I feel her answering me. I can feel it in my chest. I put my left hand there and press it with my right. It’s like I can connect with her.”
• In another account, a 5-year-old boy who was not told the age or name of his donor, knew the name of his donor and all the details of his death.

Other recipients have been able to describe their donors and their deaths as well. Some reenact the moment of death in their dreams. But how could they know these details? Is the organ storing all that information about the details of the donors and their life experiences? Or is it an energy that’s carrying the memory?

“It’s fascinating, isn’t it?” said Dr. Dong. “There is a theory in traditional Chinese culture of Taoism that the human body is a universe. If it is a universe, each cell or organ may be a mini-universe. Then, there’s another theory in the Buddhist tradition from Shakyamuni, that there are 3,000 worlds in one grain of sand. If that is true, then we can understand why an organ can store so much information about an individual human being.”

This is taken from a long document. Read the rest here: theepochtimes

Header image: Penn Medicare

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