If a brain transplant were possible...

[An Officer]

Say someone had an irreversible brain problem, and brain transplants had become possible... how much of the original person would actually remain if the procedure were carried out?

Just an odd question that came to me whilst reading an article about organ transplants...

 

[john titor]

It depends on which part of the brain I would hazard

 

[An Officer]

I mean an entire brain transplant.

 

[Omnius]

The person with the brain problem would cease to exist, and the brain donor would assume control over the body. Actually I think you should speak of a donor body, instead of a donor brain .

 

[Jadzia]

I would say with a brain transplant, the person would be the brain donor, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some personality changes.

There have been reports in the past that when people have organ transplants, that they can sometimes develop some personality changes more like the person who donated the organ, such as a passionately liking a particular food that the organ donor liked, when before that transplant they didn't like that food at all.

You can imagine nerve feedback and hormonal and enzyme responses from a donated organ might influence things like food preferences. For example, with the liver, the metabolic pathways function with different effectiveness in all people, so some food chemicals are dealt with better than others.

It isn't so far fetched to imagine the feedback mechanisms having an indirect effect on personality.

 

[An Officer]

^ It's so weird to think about. Must feel even weirder to the person with the donated organ.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The person with the brain problem would cease to exist, and the brain donor would assume control over the body.

Agreed. Our personalities, memories, everything that makes us the people that we are, all reside within the brain. Remove the brain and the person goes with it. A different brain is a new person - the fact that it's the same body, is irrelevant.

 

[An Officer]

What about the soul? Arguably, some traits may reside there...

 

[ManOnTheWave]

I'd be curious to see how different a person would be if a working brain were transplanted into a new body. Besides curing whatever physical ailment harmed to original body, what would that do to the personality?

 

[RoJoHen]

What about the soul? Arguably, some traits may reside there...

Arguably, indeed.

If there is such a thing, I would say that its traits are dependent entirely on the life experiences of the person. If that person's brain dies, their life is over, so the soul has no reason to stick around.

 

[TheLonelySquire]

Say someone had an irreversible brain problem, and brain transplants had become possible... how much of the original person would actually remain if the procedure were carried out?

Just an odd question that came to me whilst reading an article about organ transplants...

I think the person is the soul, not the brain. So 100%

 

[Jadzia]

If you look at hormonal systems as one part of a bigger picture: There are many hormones which go back and to between the body and the pituitary/hypothalamus gland in the brain.

These chemical messengers affect metabolism, body weight, growth, menstruation, libedo, thyroid function, sugar management, blood pressure, and adrenal hormones. And most of these systems have a reciprocal effect on personality and mood and alertness, mental and physical energy, and feelings of panic.

But bodies are all different, and the brain's new body will inevitably respond differently to these chemical messengers it sends out. In some areas listed above the response will be stronger than before, some areas weaker. Imbalances (and new equilibria) are likely, and we might expect personality changes to be likely because of that.

 

[the Dagman]

This reminds me of Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil. A book about an ancient rich billionaire who goes about getting his brain transplanted into a younger body, only forgetting to specify the gender. He winds up in the recently murdered body of his own secretary and finds that her personality has survived and now cohabits her old body with his brain in control. Not one of Heinlein's best works, but I found it interesting when I read it as a teenager.

 

[farmkid]

Would the proposed operation be a brain transplant or a body transplant? Leaving questions of the souls aside, I think "body transplant" would be a more appropriate term. The memories and personality would go with the brain, though as others have pointed out, interactions between the body and brain would likely alter the original personality considerably.

 

[An Officer]

^ That's an interesting distinction!

 

[archeryguy1701]

By and large, it would probably still be the same person, but being contained in a different "vessel" might have some indirect effects... more/ less testosterone or estrogen, sensitivity to some stimuli, feeling different about the new body, etc.

 

[RJDiogenes]

The identity resides entirely in the brain, of course, but a completely new body would likely influence moods and behavior and ultimately have an effect on personality over time. For example, tastes in food might be different. The new body may have different energy levels or internal rhythms. To use an overt example, if a person suffered from chronic debilitating pain and was transplanted into a healthy body, their mood and activity levels would increase dramatically.

 

[Trekker4747]

Say someone had an irreversible brain problem, and brain transplants had become possible... how much of the original person would actually remain if the procedure were carried out?

Just an odd question that came to me whilst reading an article about organ transplants...

I think the person is the soul, not the brain. So 100%

Science disagrees with you.

What you're saying is that if someone shoots you in the head, turning your brain into goo, your body is kept alive, and someone takes another person's brain and puts it in your skull that YOU would be alive and that that other person would cease to exsist?

Sorry, you're wrong.

MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans and any other scan/test done on the brain shows time and time again without fail that the brain contains everything that we are and know. No information is stored in any other part of the body. (Accounts of people "claiming" to develop tastes or traits of organ donors are likely suffering from a form of self-fulfilling beliefs.)

If your brain dies you go with it.Want to believe in souls? Fine, the soul lives in the brain and not the whole body. If all your body "needed to be you" was the soul then hypoxic brain injury and other severe brain maladies would be non-exsistant.

Put my brain in another's body? I would become that other person (a hot red-headed woman, please. ) and that other person would be gone (unless their brain is put in another's body.)

There's no reason at all to believe that without the brain in your head right now that there'd been any "you" to exsist.

 

[Messianni]

Say someone had an irreversible brain problem, and brain transplants had become possible... how much of the original person would actually remain if the procedure were carried out?

Just an odd question that came to me whilst reading an article about organ transplants...

I think the person is the soul, not the brain. So 100%

Science disagrees with you.

What you're saying is that if someone shoots you in the head, turning your brain into goo, your body is kept alive, and someone takes another person's brain and puts it in your skull that YOU would be alive and that that other person would cease to exsist?

Sorry, you're wrong.

MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans and any other scan/test done on the brain shows time and time again without fail that the brain contains everything that we are and know. No information is stored in any other part of the body. (Accounts of people "claiming" to develop tastes or traits of organ donors are likely suffering from a form of self-fulfilling beliefs.)

If your brain dies you go with it.Want to believe in souls? Fine, the soul lives in the brain and not the whole body. If all your body "needed to be you" was the soul then hypoxic brain injury and other severe brain maladies would be non-exsistant.

Put my brain in another's body? I would become that other person (a hot red-headed woman, please. ) and that other person would be gone (unless their brain is put in another's body.)

There's no reason at all to believe that without the brain in your head right now that there'd been any "you" to exsist.

Why are you even trying with him?

I would think that, upon initially waking up there would be a great deal of shock. After all it's not like slipping on a different suit; everything would be different. I wouldn't be surprised if you had to re-learn how to walk, talk, etc. It wouldn't take nearly as long, but there would definitely be some "growing pains".

 

[RJDiogenes]

This all reminds me of an espionage novel I read in the early 80s; I think it was called Fallback. It involved the brain of a scientist being transplanted into the body of an agent, and there were definitely some adjustment difficulties.