Grateful owner of the first Jarvik artificial heart, he seems to have lost his emotions:
At the same time, he reports, he’s become more “coldhearted” — “less sympathetic in some ways.” He just doesn’t feel like he can connect with those close to him. He wishes he could bond with his twin grandsons, for example. “They’re 8, and I don’t want to be bothered to have a reasonable relationship with them and I don’t know why,” he says.He can only feel enough to regret that he doesn’t feel enough.
Could the poets have been right all these millennia? Could emotions be matters of the heart?
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{ 2 comments }
Yes, I too would look to the organic as a basis for this person’s symptoms, but not in the thoracic cavity.
Time on cardiopulmonary bypass with the issues of cerebral perfusion and microembolization is a well established cause of changes in cognition, affect, mood, and organic depression. Also consider that this poor fellow is now living the mortal awareness that his heart could stop or malfunction at the very next beat. Something that most of us can know about our healthy native heart, yet have no difficulty ignoring most of the time. Every time he hears the machine click, whir, beep he knows he’s not dead — yet.
Just think about how your heart rate changes with various emotions…
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