cellular memory ? - share your knowledge (Jun/06/2008 )

have you ever heard of it..???
i saw a TV program, discussing that :-
when you give an organ of your body to someone else, you will also give him your interests ..!!!
in that program they interviewed a family who a heart transplantation operation was done to their son.
the mom noticed that her son started listening to soft music,riding bicycle..in contrast to his usual habits..
she asked the donor's family about his ( the donor-their son) interests,and discovered that
the interests became the same !!!!

weired and interesting thing...isn't it ???

Cellular memory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cellular memory is the hypothesis that such things as memories, habits, interests, and tastes may somehow be stored in all the cells of human bodies, i.e. not only in the brain There is also the fear that such notions may hinder organ donation


what do you say ???
shall we REALLY take this in consideration when transplantation operation is the choice ???

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Don't consider a story as a scientific fact, or you will be trapped by pseudoscience. What are the evidences? Is it a true evidence? You must considered Questions such as above if you try to believe such an unbelievable thing.

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I too read in some news about this a long time back and surprisingly, it is linked to only the 'heart' transplant according to the paper that covered a few case stories.

I had long forgotten but thank U nightingale that you brought this up.

I does sound not so convincing to scientific world and is questionable but everything starts from a question till someone finds an answer. I am sure there are already many working on it. Did you try pubmed? I am right now engaged with some work of mine and will certainly look them up when I have time. If there is some basis, then it will be a really interesting scientific knowledge someday.

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this idea was turned into a movie called Godsend in 2004 with robert de niro (he actually plays the mad scientist who wants his kid back after his dead). as far as i know there is no scientific evidence for this, you can always argue it hasn't been found yet . i know cellular memory is also refered as epigenetic inheritance.

this sounds like the idea Lamarck had.

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I never heard of any study dealing with the question if xenoplanted organs contain "memories" of the donator which transforms the acceptor in its phenotype or behavior; so, if there are no reliable and valuable data, any comment is pure speculation; interesting but only science fiction;

Lamarckism is a different thing as it deals with heritability; for a long time it was thought that Darwinism exclude hypothesis of Lamarck, however, nowadays, and in a narrow range, experiences may pass to descendants:

I have read about a Swedish scientist who found that human population who often starved have descendants who have better physiological abilities to cope with hunger;

So far I have not read the study in original but I read a summary, I think in Nature or Science

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sounds interesting, not unexpected if these people have been starving for generations and have had to develop a physiological response to extremely unfavorable circumstances, same happens with plants under stressful situations, like drought or pests, some few individuals are resistant - perpetuation of the species, survival of the best.
if you have the reference could you put it here please? it would be interesting to read that paper. thanks.

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toejam, I looked for it and found sth; Lars Olov Bygren, I think an epidemiologist, and his colleagues, published last year the following:

Eur J Hum Genet. 2007 Jul;15(7):784-90. Epub 2007 Apr 25.
Transgenerational response to nutrition, early life circumstances and longevity.
Kaati G, Bygren LO, Pembrey M, Sjöström M.

Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden. Gunnar.Kaati@socmed.umu.se

Nutrition might induce, at some loci, epigenetic or other changes that could be transmitted to the next generation impacting on health. The slow growth period (SGP) before the prepubertal peak in growth velocity has emerged as a sensitive period where different food availability is followed by different transgenerational response (TGR). The aim of this study is to investigate to what extent the probands own childhood circumstances are in fact the determinants of the findings. In the analysis, data from three random samples, comprising 271 probands and their 1626 parents and grandparents, left after exclusions because of missing data, were utilized. The availability of food during any given year was classified based on regional statistics. The ancestors' SGP was set at the ages of 8-12 years and the availability of food during these years classified as good, intermediate or poor. The probands' childhood circumstances were defined by the father's ownership of land, the number of siblings and order in the sibship, the death of parents and the parents' level of literacy. An earlier finding of a sex-specific influence from the ancestors' nutrition during the SGP, going from the paternal grandmother to the female proband and from the paternal grandfather to the male proband, was confirmed. In addition, a response from father to son emerged when childhood social circumstances of the son were accounted for. Early social circumstances influenced longevity for the male proband. TGRs to ancestors' nutrition prevailed as the main influence on longevity.


try PubMed for further reading

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interesting! thanks bearer.

the original topic of this thread also reminded me of mosquitos in different locations that different biting habits. up northern mexico (in tamaulipas) mosquitos go for the lower parts of the body: feet mainly, rare times they bite arms or face. in some other places they focus on the face (central part of mexico) and some others bite anywhere they can! i believe this behaviour can't be random, it might have a genetic (epigenetic?) basis, tho i'm biased...

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yes, I agree, epigenetics seems to have the pivotal role

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Rather different species with different biology/behaviour. If one species then biotypes, selected to to fit better to their environment

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