Via: Daily Prompt – Replacement
I’ll be honest. The first thing I thought about when I saw today’s prompt was a certain new leader of a certain superpower. But I wasn’t in the mood to discuss partisan tyrants so I’m going with the second thing that came to my mind, which allows me to hope that all living things are indeed interconnected by the smallest unit of our organic structure regardless of how some wish to keep us divided. I’m talking about organ transplants and cellular memory phenomenon.
Did you ever see the movie Return To Me? Well, I thought about heart transplant, then that movie popped into my head and voilà. Return To Me tells the story of a woman who receives the heart of a man’s wife and then falls in love with him and vice versa. Of course, it’s a romantic dramedy so it only depicts the idea that receiving someone’s organ can change you through the most elemental of human emotions – love. But a little research will tell you that there have been numerous incidents recorded in medical science where people who underwent organ transplants experienced remarkable personality changes, eventually coming to learn that their new traits were shared by the persons whose organs they had received.
A woman who was never much of a reader forms a sudden affinity for classic literature after receiving her kidney. A man who had always been a go-getter alpha before his heart transplant listens to a British singer on the radio for the first time and breaks down into tears only to find out that it was his heart donor’s favorite song. Though scientists have yet to give cell memory phenomenon their full endorsement, studies now show more evidence that combinatorial memories stored in the neurons of the donor organs may be the cause of emotional and behavioral changes in recipients. Moreover, parallels between donor and recipient unknown to each other are most often found in physiological, cultural and social preferences apart from responses to name associations and sensory experiences.
That is how science explains it. Me? I think it’s just the fact that broken down to our very basics, we are all really related to one another and I, for one, take heart in that. It is a miracle of nature that should be cherished. So be more kind to each other, folks.
Image: BK, Flickr
The Romantic Quill 