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by jojo2000 2378 days ago
The old vision (brain = neurons => memories, rest of the body = organs which execute single or multiple functions, synchronized by the brain) is slowly fading away.

We have a lot of active neurons in the digestive system, which is in fact a second brain.

Same can be said for the heart which contains an autonomous neuronal system to control the cardiac function independently if need be.

Notions of distributed systems apply : redundancy, parallelism, coordinated autonomous systems, synchronization.

So why wouldn't memory storage be distributed too ?

Why wouldn't some memories stored in organs be retained after transplantation ?

2 comments

The idea has some merit, but lots and lot of trasplants are done each year since decades. Nobody has exit the hospital suddenly turning on a pianist or an expert plumber after a hand transplant. And nobody suddenly forgot the knowledge to do some specialized thing, or recognize a beloved one, after losing an arm or a leg.

The kentucky fried thing (assuming that is a true history and not a fake new) could have a few simpler explanations like doctors talking about the donor in the pre or postoperatory phase while the patient was half-awake

Indeed, regarding the KFC case, there are a lot of possible explanations, because the evidence doesn't allow to elaborate a certain conclusion.

Regarding inherited memories, this isn't common case, nevertheless it happened in the case of transplants [0] [1]

[0] https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2016/10/15...

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03069...

This is colloquially referred to as having a "gut feeling".