• June 30, 2003

Going into surgery, Catherine Beckman never imagined she would wake up with more than a heart. Neither did many other transplant recipients whose new organs were accompanied by foreign memories, eerie new personal preferences and unexplained emerging talents. Transplanting Memories will explore such phenomena firsthand through the stories of organ donor recipients on Saturday, July 19, at 9 PM ET on the Discovery Health Channel. In Transplanting Memories, prominent medical experts attempt to explain why some organ recipients adopt these memories and emotions, also known as "cellular memories." While a handful of scientists are skeptical -- dismissing these strange phenomena as post-surgery stress or reaction to anti- organ rejection drugs -- they are also countered by a growing number of experts who believe cellular memories are indeed transplanted with organs. Dr. Candace Pert, a pharmacologist and professor at Georgetown University believes the mind is not just in the brain, but also throughout the body. This school of thought could explain such strange transplant experiences. Other medical experts offer different explanations, and opine that it is not so much mystical as it is science, and a science that needs further exploration.