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Oh, Mr. Science!

It's actually a pretty standard NDE with a regular post-Lightning "Syndrome".

A lightning strike actually stuns the breathing centers of the brain and can lead to a transient hypoxia and a sudden return to breathing and "life" without intervention. While Dr. Cicoria's sudden piano music appreciation is unique, changes in personality and other odd lightning related neurological quirks are not.



Behavioral Consequences of Lightning and Electrical Injury
Margaret Primeau, Ph.D., Gerolf H. Engelstatter, Ph.D., A.B.M.P., I.A.B.C.P., and Kimberly K Bares, M.S.
Seminars in Neurology, Volume 15, Number 3, September 1995
http://www.uic.edu/labs/lightninginjury/psycho.html
 
Well if that aint proof of a god at work i dont know what is! I for one am converted.
Thanks Mayday, My life will never be the same again.
 
learner said:
Well if that aint proof of a god at work i dont know what is! I for one am converted.
Thanks Mayday, My life will never be the same again.
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It's similar evidence to a car crash. Some dude survives a car crash but who cares about his dead dog, sisters, bystanders etc. and the countless thousands who die from it each year. Its a miracle, it must be god!!!

Dr. Cicorio survived a lightning strike. Nevermind the many who die from it or are permanently disfigured, disabled and mentally crippled by it...oh...they must have "deserved" it.
 
paximperium said:
It's similar evidence to a car crash. Some dude survives a car crash but who cares about his dead dog, sisters, bystanders etc. and the countless thousands who die from it each year. Its a miracle, it must be god!!!

Dr. Cicorio survived a lightning strike. Nevermind the many who die from it or are permanently disfigured, disabled and mentally crippled by it...oh...they must have "deserved" it.
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I don't believe it was God intervening.

I don't believe God intervenes (if there is a God.)

I also know how organ transplant recipients can crave things their donors used to crave. My husband had strange cravings right after he received 4 units of blood. May have had something to do with it, maybe not. I suffered a brain injury as a 13 y/o (horse fell on me) and I have two holes in my frontal lobe, each about the size of a quarter. It has caused me to suffer debilitating depression and melancholy.

We are talking about something else here. Whatever it is, I wish I could catch it. I have no musical ability. But it sounds like it made a believer out of this doctor.
 
I also know how organ transplant recipients can crave things their donors used to crave.
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The only reference I found were schwarz and a few other consort. Also something with skeptdic. Oh yeah a lot of book and film references.

So call me unconvinced. But please with evidence this time.
 
paximperium said:
It's actually a pretty standard NDE with a regular post-Lightning "Syndrome".

A lightning strike actually stuns the breathing centers of the brain and can lead to a transient hypoxia and a sudden return to breathing and "life" without intervention. While Dr. Cicoria's sudden piano music appreciation is unique, changes in personality and other odd lightning related neurological quirks are not.



Behavioral Consequences of Lightning and Electrical Injury
Margaret Primeau, Ph.D., Gerolf H. Engelstatter, Ph.D., A.B.M.P., I.A.B.C.P., and Kimberly K Bares, M.S.
Seminars in Neurology, Volume 15, Number 3, September 1995
http://www.uic.edu/labs/lightninginjury/psycho.html
Click to expand...

This link is interesting but it doesn't explain or address the sudden musical ability/interest and mostly seems to deal with negative consequences versus the positive consequence described here.

Mayday, I'm not sure what makes this seem uniquely convincing to you as an NDE? Is it because it happened to an MD? He came apparently near to death, he had an experience of bliss, then he developed a fascination with piano music - Why couldn't this be attributed to some part of his brain being stimulated by the accident? What is supernatural about it?
 
mayday said:
I don't believe it was God intervening.

I don't believe God intervenes (if there is a God.)

I also know how organ transplant recipients can crave things their donors used to crave.
Click to expand...
You "know" that organ transplant recipients having cravings from the donor? Really...how does that work? What is the mechanism? Care to cite any papers on this subject?

mayday said:
My husband had strange cravings right after he received 4 units of blood. May have had something to do with it, maybe not.
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Did your husband(or donor recipients) consume a part of the magical energy from the donor? What praytell could it be? Perhaps the pica(look it up...it has to do with iron deficiency anemia) could be the cause? Perhaps he was dehydrated? Perhaps he was hungry? The "maybe not" is more probable.

mayday said:
I suffered a brain injury as a 13 y/o (horse fell on me) and I have two holes in my frontal lobe, each about the size of a quarter. It has caused me to suffer debilitating depression and melancholy.
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Traumatic brain injury and depression is very strongly correlated and some studies show the biochemical and physiological changes in the brain after the events...nothing magical.

mayday said:
We are talking about something else here. Whatever it is, I wish I could catch it. I have no musical ability. But it sounds like it made a believer out of this doctor.
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So? The guy was in his fifties and he was an orthopedic surgeon...after the event, it took him over one and a half decades to get to the point to perform a concert. It takes as long to train a young concert pianist...I consider that a waste of a perfectly surgeon.

If the same occurred and a top surgeon was made into a talentless hack wannabee pianists who is unwilling to go back to his original profession because "god" gave him a message, tell me if we would hear about it.
 
ExMinister said:
This link is interesting but it doesn't explain or address the sudden musical ability/interest and mostly seems to deal with negative consequences versus the positive consequence described here.
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Yes, it doesn't explain this sudden change in musical ability/interest but it does go through sudden personality changes. First of all...is it really "sudden musical ability"? Perhaps he had it all along? Perhaps he didn't really have much of an ability since it took over a decade after the event for him to reach concert performance level?

There is a newer paper from 2002 that unfortunately is locked up in Neurology Journal website that goes through a couple of other odd lightning case reports but lightning strike injuries(and seizures and brain tumors and head injuries etc.) are well known to cause behavioral and personality changes, sometimes subtle changes as well.

This case is unique in that the "injury" seem to localize to the music...and even more specifically piano music pathways/region of the brain. I find that interesting and worth studying.
 
It's not as though this gentleman had no musical background and suddenly has genius. He had had some piano studies as a child, and also played guitar. And 14 years isn't a bad timeline to learn proficiency on an instrument, even one not studied seriously until adulthood.

I find no need for anything beyond "discharge of electrical energy into an electrically-based processor produces weird changes" in explanation. Maybe I'm missing the Wow-Factor here.

As to craving odd foods...ever been pregnant? Trust me, one's tastes are strongly affected by hormonal changes, which almost any major medical issue will alter. If you're trying to say that a blood transfusion makes the recipient crave foods that 1) They did not like or want previously, and 2) The donor did like and want, that is a testable hypothesis. Normally, the sources of donated blood and/or blood products are not tracked, so it would require a little more work than just looking at medical records. But it's definitely testable. Until and unless double-blind tests show such an effect, I decline to spend much time expecting a change. Which, I suspect, means it won't have such an impact on me.

Just my thoughts.
 
I read about the Tony Cicoria case in Musicophilia, and found it truly fascinating. I take everything I read by Sacks with a little pinch of salt (though I revere him as an author and a thinker), because (imo) he's a wonderful physician but an even better artist. No doubt, though, this freak brain injury has a lot to tell us about normal and abnormal brain function, and the rationality/emotion spectrum, and (infinitely mysterious) music in between.

mayday, why do you think 'Mr Science' would want to explain it away?

mayday said:
I also know how organ transplant recipients can crave things their donors used to crave. My husband had strange cravings right after he received 4 units of blood. May have had something to do with it, maybe not. I suffered a brain injury as a 13 y/o (horse fell on me) and I have two holes in my frontal lobe, each about the size of a quarter. It has caused me to suffer debilitating depression and melancholy.
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Your husband had 'strange cravings' after receiving blood (presumably following some serious trauma or illness).

You 'suffer debilitating depression and melancholy', and were in an accident that involved a head injury as a child.

So, post hoc ergo propter (google it). In spades. (Though I certainly don't want to trivialise your depression.)

This kind of thinking gets us nowhere. Causality is far more complex than you can imagine (mind-boggling, even). How do we tell if some {effect B} is caused by some {event A}? The best answer we have is tedious studies/statistics.

But we will probably never be able to say with certainty whether your husband's cravings, or your depression, were caused (more physics/philosophy problems) by any specific event. That's science for you.

Back to the OP: I think there may be something of importance in this story. Problem is, now that Sacks has created such an attractive myth, we're not likely to see any serious investigation.
 
ExMinister said:
This link is interesting but it doesn't explain or address the sudden musical ability/interest and mostly seems to deal with negative consequences versus the positive consequence described here.

Mayday, I'm not sure what makes this seem uniquely convincing to you as an NDE? Is it because it happened to an MD? He came apparently near to death, he had an experience of bliss, then he developed a fascination with piano music - Why couldn't this be attributed to some part of his brain being stimulated by the accident? What is supernatural about it?
Click to expand...

I know, it fascinates me that people are surprised that an organ that seems to run on something analogous to low-level electric current would be profoundly affected by a strong shock.

It would be more surprising if it weren't.
 
I have indeed noticed that musical talent is one of the human abilities that many people link with spiritual and mystic stuff.

Like Mozart for example, had to have some special gift sent from above, because seeing a child doing those things is just... too much....

A handkerchief for the ladies please. And quick.
 
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