A heart transplant patient is craving the food his donor used to eat, prompting questions over whether the organ has a 'memory' of its own.
David Waters cannot stop eating an Australian-made snack food called Burger Rings, and he has now found out that the teenager whose heart he received was always eating the same snack.
The curious case adds weight to a theory that the brain is not the only organ to store memories or personality traits. Some researchers believe that a memory process can develop in other parts of the body, such as the heart, a phenomenon known as 'cellular memory'.
In an earlier reported case, American Claire Sylvia, who received a new heart and lung, found she developed a sudden craving for beer, chicken nuggets and green peppers. Her donor was an 18-year-old male who had died in a motorbike accident.
Now the case of Mr Waters, of Adelaide, and his New South Wales donor Kaden Delaney has drawn the attention of researchers looking into the heart's possible memory attributes.
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