Surprising FACTS About Your Heart-Brain

Yale New Haven Hospital, Connecticut, May 1988. The hospital has just performed its first successful heart-lung transplant on Claire Sylvia, a 47-year-old drama teacher from Boston. This being America, five days after the operation, journalists are in her ICU unit, interviewing her as she sits on an exercise bicycle wearing yellow silk pyjamas and a pink dressing gown. During this bizarre press conference, a reporter asks: "Now that you've had this operation, what do you want right now more than anything?" "To tell you the truth," she replies, "right now I'd die for a beer." 

She is momentarily stunned by what she has said, not so much by its flippancy as by the fact that she does not like beer, indeed has never liked it. This is her first clue that she got more than a new blood pump.

In the weeks that follow, Claire finds she has many transformed tastes. She craves Kentucky Fried chicken, ogles women, likes blue and green instead of her usual hot pink, red and gold. But when she has a vivid dream about a young biker,  "Tim L," it leads her via obituaries and other clues, to finding the family of her donor, Tim Lamarande, and confirms where these tastes came from.

OK, Claire is a "spiritual person" who consults psychics. And some cardiologists and neurologists are sceptical about heart memory. But Claire is not alone in her post-transplant experiences. So many other patients report otherwise unexplained memories, changes of taste and personality, that it has led to considerable research being done in the 25 years since her surgery. The research, including that of Canadian neurologist, Dr. Andrew Amour, confirms the heart as a neuron-rich "thinking centre" connected into our comprehensive neural systems.

Read this article, view the embedded video, and then get back to me with your thoughts. My mind is racing with numerous implications, what about yours? You can enter a comment below or email me at waverockcoaching@gmail.com

Lorne