Artificial Heartbeat???

     Today I watched a movie, after the encouragement of a friend who found it interesting. The movie is called "Repo Men". The story shortly is about a company which "sells" artificial limbs and organs to people who need them, whilst when those "clients" are not able to afford the send their "Repo Men" to repossess those organs for the company. The story evolves such a "Repo Man" who becomes the prey of the company when he gets a transplanted artificial heart after a heart attack while being on duty. I am not writing this post to criticize the movie (I am not a movie reviewer, I only watch them for fun), nor am I doing it to talk about the ethics that arise from such movies (cause if our society someday ends up saving lives of people for the sake of money, and then repossessing that life given, then we are doomed to lose the very thing that our species is named after..Humanity). I had another strange idea while watching this movie. I put myself into the shoes of the protagonist, thinking myself living with an artificial heart. Would my life be different??

     Scientists for many decades have been trying to simulate the way the human heart functions. And it's been a long term obligation for them to create a fully operational artificial human heart. Many steps have been made. And the past years surely have been a breakthrough towards this direction. There have been created hearts entirely made of mechanical parts. Most of them (and it has been a very successful application) are being used as aids for those who have heart conditions. Others have been temporal aids to help a person who undertakes a surgery stay alive along the way of the long hours of the surgery. And the latest innovation has been creating "live" hearts from real tissues of animals. The goal itself is probably the noblest of all. To use technology and science to create a heart which could save a human life is nothing less than a divine deed. I am no scientist, no doctor or surgeon. But I am thinking of something that I don't know if any of them has ever thought about. It would be astonishing to be able to recreate other organs (such as livers or kidneys) for people who need a transplant. But can an artificial heart fully replace a human heart??


     Has anyone of you ever been chased by ravenous dogs?When in danger the heart doubles or triples the rate of the beats, pumping more blood to the organs that need it. Has anyone of you ever been involved in a serious car accident or witnessed such? After the crash there is a weird silence and the only thing that is alive and can be heard is the heart beating fast. Has anyone of you ever come face to face with the love of your life, with your soulmate? The heartbeat explodes to outrageous rates, making it almost a full body experience. Every single beat can be felt all over the body, and you can even actually listen to the heart beating even in the most noisy places. For many years I was being rational, believing that the mind was the place of every cognition of the human soul. I believed that the heart was only a tool, a pump which would circulate blood around the body. But the heart is alive. It breathes. It feels. I can tell stories. It can feel pain and joy. To be true there is no scientific proof, why the heart beats faster (or slower) according to the conditions that happen outside the body. And it is also true that you can lay relaxed on your bed and only a single thought or feeling can erupt and make your heart go beating like a steam engine at full speed. I believe like many of the urban legends and poets do, that the center of a human existence is the heart. The only muscle that can think and order. The heart does have a mind of it's own. It works abruptly and independently. Spontaneously and incompatibly sometimes. Cause the heart does have other rules, way different and more complicated than the ones of the mind. In a way, it craves for self preservation. And I know that sometimes the heart even feels lonely. It wants to be heard, it wants to be noticed. So it gives out signs of life. It creates circumstances. It's when we have that belief of something changing, the belief of something's happening but we just can put our finger on and say what it really is. It's the heart which talks to us in an "alien" language, which we can vaguely understand but immensely feel. And surely the brain and the heart speak that language too, and that's why sometimes they coordinate. But this happens only sometimes. Cause it's also true that sometimes the heart desires, and the mind rationalizes...and in between there is a huge conflict which could tear a human being apart. We choose accordingly to what we are. Others listen to the heart other the reason dictated by the brain. And that's what really makes us human beings.

     Taking into account all the previous and many many more "eccentricities" of the heart, how could we ever replicate the full functionality of a real human heart into a lab. Surely (and that's an incredibly great thing to do) we can extend the life span of people with heart conditions. And we can give them even years of life with a transplant of an artificial heart. But even if those hearts could ever be imbued with a chip, and the most sophisticated algorithm of the world, they would NEVER be able to simulate a real alive thinking human heart.  Maybe we can alter the curse of nature, and help people stay alive with human-made hearts, but can we make them work in so many levels as the "flesh" ones? We'll just have to wait and see where science can take it....