[HN Gopher] Personality changes associated with organ transplants
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       Personality changes associated with organ transplants
        
       Author : hsuduebc2
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2024-05-18 19:47 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.mdpi.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.mdpi.com)
        
       | bradrn wrote:
       | Based on the following paragraph alone, I feel quite tempted to
       | file this under 'utter rubbish':
       | 
       | > Another hypothesized mechanism [for personality changes]
       | involves alterations in the electromagnetic field of the
       | recipient. Pearsall highlighted the fact that "energy and
       | information are the same thing" (p., 5 [4]). One form of energy
       | is electromagnetic energy, and the heart generates the largest
       | electromagnetic field in the body. Information related to the
       | personality of the donor could be stored within the
       | electromagnetic field of the donor's heart and this information
       | could then be transferred with the heart during transplant
       | surgery, producing a change in the recipient's personality [4].
        
         | lo_zamoyski wrote:
         | > "energy and information are the same thing"
         | 
         | Reads like this [0]:
         | 
         | 'the human body as undergirded by a "quantum mechanical body"
         | composed not of matter but energy and information'
         | 
         | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra
        
       | danrob wrote:
       | Ah, right, "personality attributes", like: - physical attributes
       | - physical activities - electronic devices - colors
       | 
       | The title makes it sound like their Myers Briggs/Enneagram types
       | changed.
        
       | m0nhawk wrote:
       | I wonder how much any personality changes can be attributed to
       | the unconscious (and even conscious) change of personality.
       | 
       | After all, people after major life-altering have sometimes
       | drastic change in personalities.
        
       | conformist wrote:
       | Published in an MDPI journal so the prior should be that it's not
       | serious research, unfortunately.
        
       | huijzer wrote:
       | > The percentage of participants reporting any personality
       | changes was comparable between heart transplant recipients
       | (91.3%) and other organ transplant recipients (87.5%). These
       | results suggest personality changes following any organ
       | transplant are common
       | 
       | Next year these researchers probably come back with double the
       | amount of variables to get even better numbers! (Because note the
       | use of the word "any". The more variables they add, the higher
       | the chance that a participant says "yes" to any of the
       | variables.)
        
       | scottLobster wrote:
       | Having witnessed how the hormones secreted by a dying liver can
       | dramatically alter personalities, I was interested based on the
       | title.
       | 
       | Unfortunately this research seems more to be a survey intended to
       | promote various woo-woo theories. Don't get me wrong it would be
       | revolutionary if true, to the point of discovering new physics
       | and biology. Unfortunately the quality of the data fails to
       | support any such conclusions, leading me to believe the authors
       | are either extremely incompetent or not people to be taken
       | seriously.
        
       | thrill wrote:
       | I would suspect there's some truth in an orthogonal way. Any
       | major surgery that eliminates continuous pain, even if it was not
       | overwhelming, has the potential to alter the patient afterwards.
       | I know I was a different person personality wise after surviving
       | major cancer surgery.
       | 
       | That said, the musings in this article reads like rubbish.
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-18 23:02 UTC)