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by mr_toad 3 days ago
Just 47 participants in the online study and a wide variety of psychological issues: “depression, anxiety, psychosis, and sexual dysfunction.”. A few of them found religion.

Is anyone surprised that surviving traumatic surgery with a long debilitating recovery time causes mental stress?

1 comments

> Is anyone surprised that surviving traumatic surgery with a long debilitating recovery time causes mental stress?

No, but some of the references reports and studies (referenced in the above study), if truthful, would be too much of a coincidence, no?

> a heart and lung transplant at Yale-New Haven hospital in 1988. Following surgery, Sylvia developed a new taste for green peppers and chicken nuggets, foods she previously disliked. As soon as she was released from the hospital, she promptly headed to a Kentucky Fried Chicken to order chicken nuggets. She later met her donor’s family and inquired about his affinity for green peppers. Their response was, “Are you kidding? He loved them… But what he really loved was chicken nuggets”

> a 5-year-old boy received the heart of a 3-year-old boy but was not informed about his donor’s age or cause of death. Despite this lack of information, he provided a vivid description of his donor after the surgery: “He’s just a little kid. He’s a little brother like about half my age. He got hurt bad when he fell down. He likes Power Rangers a lot I think, just like I used to. I don’t like them anymore though” (p. 70, [8]). Subsequently it was reported that his donor had died after falling from an apartment window while trying to reach a Power Ranger toy that had fallen onto the window ledge. After receiving his new heart, the recipient refused to touch or play with Power Rangers

I'm sure there might be other explanations to all of these, but at least people are trying to study it more.

Drugs can alter taste. I've had experience with cancer patients, and a side effect of the treament is that food starts to taste differently. Would not be surprised if the drug+treatment combo of traumatic surgery might result in something similar in some percentage of the patients.
But this doesn't seem to be just "taste changed", but literally "taste changed to what the donor had", that's a bit different, at least in my mind.

Again, not claiming "memory sits in the heart", just that it wouldn't be surprising if there was more to it than just in the brain itself.