The Fascinating Story of the Twins Who Share Brains, Thoughts, and Senses

This is one of the most surprising and awesome tales ever told in the history of medicine. These twins are Tatiana and Krista Hogan. Their brains and sensory systems are networked together, but they have separate personalities. Their story defies belief.

So much, in fact, that Tatiana and Krista Hogan shouldn't be alive at all. Their chances of surviving the pregnancy, birth and first months of life were almost zero. Surprisingly, they turned four on October 25, and they are still healthy and happy, as you can see in the photo above.

They play Nintendo Wii games against each other, they fight for toys and they share food and physiological functions. But they also share their senses. For example, one can pick an object out of her field of view, while the twin looks at the object.

Most importantly, however, they can share each other thoughts, like their grandmother—Louise McKay—describes:

They share thoughts, too. Nobody will be saying anything, and Tati will just pipe up and say, ‘Stop that!' And she'll smack her sister.

Scientists are nothing short of absolutely amazed. Here you have two kids, completely different from each other, with their own distinct personality, but with connected brains and sensory systems. Dr. Douglas Cochrane—neurosurgeon at Vancouver's Children's Hospital—has tested their networking abilities:

Their brains are recording signals from the other twin's visual field. One might be seeing what the other one is seeing.

Nobody can possibly imagine how this may work and feel for them. And since they haven't developed their full verbal skills yet, scientists can't ask them about it. I don't know if they will have a lot of answers for them, however. If they ask me how I see or smell things, there is no way that I could accurately describe it. These actions just happen. Like you and me, they have no other point of reference. Their life is the only one they know. For them, sharing thoughts and senses is the only way things could be.

But whatever the implications for science and philosophy are, their mother is just happy and grateful for every day with them. She also believe they're here for a reason but, "we just don't know the reason yet."

I don't know what that reason could be, but the mere fact that they are alive, happy, loving and being loved, is enough for me.

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IVF mix-up: Couple decides to keep the baby

The couple in the centre of the in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) mix-up case has decided to keep the baby. Their lawyer Mr S. Palaniappan, speaking on their behalf, said that the mother has already bonded with the infant. The baby has a markedly different complexion from that of his mother, a Singaporean Chinese woman, and her husband, a Caucasian Singapore PR. The baby's blood type is B, while those of the couple is A and O. A DNA test has confirmed that the child has the mother's DNA makeup, but not the father's.

Dr Cheng Li Chang, the medical director of Thomson Fertility Centre where the couple had sought IVF treatment, said in a statement that he and his colleagues "fully empathise with the couple, and are very sorry and distressed over what has happened". It was reported that they have met the couple to explain the situation, and will keep them updated and provide them with all possible support. Dr Cheng said the centre's operating procedures "meet all regulatory requirements, and are of the highest international standards".

The Ministry of Health, however, has said that "certain practices" could be improved. While it did not specify these practices, it will be issuing additional directives to correct them in time to come. It is understood that Thomson Fertility Centre is working closely with MOH in investigating the mix-up, and will work with the ministry to implement any action it may recommend.
Meanwhile, fertility doctors have expressed shock over the case, which is the first of its kind in Singapore.

The mix-up does not seem to have shaken the confidence of other couples undergoing IVF treatment here. Patients interviewed said that they would continue with treatment, and that they would keep the child even if a mix-up happened to them as well.

IVF cerebral palsy risks probed

Fertility problems in parents cannot explain why babies born through IVF treatment face a higher risk of cerebral palsy, say Danish scientists.

The University of Aarhus found babies of couples who struggled to conceive naturally had similar risks compared to those who conceived quickly.

But they found that the risk doubled in babies born with the help of IVF.

Other potential causes, such as the treatment itself, should be investigated, the scientists say.

UK experts said despite the low risk the issue needed to be taken seriously.

The safety of IVF and similar fertility treatments has been closely scrutinised since the first "test-tube baby" in the 1970s.

As the number of IVF babies rises, initial worries about developmental problems have faded, but there remain concerns over higher rates of cerebral palsy.

There are several possible reasons, including the increased risk of complications in multiple pregnancies, which until recently have been much more frequent in IVF pregnancies.

Doctors had also suspected that the underlying reasons for infertility might play a part, but the latest research casts doubt on that.

The team looked at a national database of medical information from thousands of pregnancies and births, the journal Human Reproduction reported.

They compared cerebral palsy rates in babies grouped depending on how long it took for their mothers to become pregnant after starting to try to conceive.

This length of time is used as a way of assessing fertility - taking more than a year to conceive might indicate some kind of problem, albeit one not severe enough to prevent pregnancy altogether.

When the "quick conceivers" were compared with those taking over a year, there was no significant difference in the rate of cerebral palsy.

However, a group of babies born after IVF or ICSI, in which sperm is directly injected into the egg, had approximately double the risk of cerebral palsy compared with those conceiving quickly.

The overall risk was not high - approximately one in 176 babies born - although this represents a significant number when set against the 12,000 babies born after IVF techniques each year in the UK.

Dr Jin Liang Zhu, who led the study, said: "Our research enabled us to examine whether untreated subfertility, measured by time to pregnancy, might be the reason for the higher risk of cerebral palsy after IVF/ICSI.

"Our results showed this was not the case because, even for couples who took a year or longer to conceive, there was no statistically significant increased risk."

He said that parents should remember that the increased risk remained very low.

The other suspect in the raised cerebral palsy risk is twin pregnancies, which carry a higher rate of problems in both mother and baby, and frequently mean that babies are delivered early.

A recent study in Sweden suggested that the trend in recent years of putting just one embryo rather than two back into a woman as part of IVF was cutting the number of children born with cerebral palsy.

Professor Karl Nygren, one of the authors of that study, said that the extra risk "may have disappeared" in countries which transferred only a single embryo.

However, Professor Richard Fleming, from the Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine, said it remained a problem.

"It's pretty clear that the issue still has substance. Even though the risks are very low for individual babies, they are high enough to deserve further research.

"Single embryo transfer will improve matters, but not solve the problem entirely."

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Overcoming the IVF Baby Blues: Hormones and Stress Are Major Contributors to Depression, Research Finds

Between 20 and 30 percent of women who undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures suffer from significant symptoms of depression. Many practitioners believe that the hormone therapy involved in IVF procedures is primarily responsible for this. But new research from Tel Aviv University shows that, while this is true, other factors are even more influential.
According to Dr. Miki Bloch of Tel Aviv University's Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, stress, pre-existing depression, and anxiety are more likely than hormone therapy to impact a woman's depression levels when undergoing IVF. Combined, these factors may also affect IVF success rates -- so diagnosis and treatment of this depression is very important.
Recently reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility, Dr. Bloch's research clarifies the involvement of different hormonal states as triggers for depression during IVF, both for long- and short-term protocols.
The long and short stories
In the long-term IVF protocol, explains Dr. Bloch, women receive injections which block ovulation, resulting in a sharp decline in estrogen and progesterone levels. This state continues for a two-week period before the patient is injected with hormones to stimulate ovulation, at which point the eggs are harvested and fertilized before being replanted into the womb. The short-term IVF protocol, on the other hand, does not include the initial two-week period of induction of a low hormonal state.
Some gynaecologists believe that depression is more likely when a woman undergoes long-term IVF therapy because of those first two weeks of hormonal repression. But Dr. Bloch's research has demonstrated that the difference between the two different procedures is negligible -- depression and anxiety rates for women who undergo the long protocol and those who undergo the short are exactly the same.
Dr. Bloch and his fellow researchers conducted a random assignment study, in which 108 women who came to the Sourasky Medical Center for IVF were randomly assigned to either the long- or short-term protocol. They were given questionnaires and interviews at the start of the therapy and at four other points during the IVF treatment.
The results, says Dr. Bloch, show consistently increasing depression rates among patients in both groups, irrespective of which protocol they underwent. The first two weeks of hormonal repression, he explains, thus have no impact on whether a woman experiences depression during IVF. "Once the patient begins ovulating, her estrogen rises to high levels. Then, after the ovum is replanted in her uterus, there is a precipitous drop in these hormonal levels," he explains. It's the severity of the estrogen drop, a feature of both protocols, that was found to affect the patient's emotional state.
Preventing stress in susceptible women
Whatever the specific effect of hormones, during their study Dr. Bloch and his fellow researchers discovered that the stress and anxiety experienced during the treatment has a significant impact on patient depression rates. When compared to a "normal" population, women undergoing IVF experience very high levels of anxiety and depression even before the treatment begins. As the protocol advances, explains Dr. Bloch, women experience increased anxiety about the success of the implantation.
Women who have a previous history of anxiety or depression disorders before the IVF treatment are even more susceptible, he says. This is likely due to the fact that these women are more emotionally vulnerable to the toll of the IVF process rather then increased reactivity to changing hormonal levels, Dr. Bloch says.
Choosing the right protocol
When it comes to depression rates, the type of protocol a patient undergoes, whether short-term or long-term, has no impact, Dr. Bloch concluded. The combination of the stress surrounding the treatment, a personal history of psychiatric disorders, and a sharp decline in estrogen levels are the main contributing factors towards depression during IVF therapy. While doctors should look at their patient's individual needs when deciding on an IVF protocol, the current report suggests the type of protocol per se is not an important factor in the induction of depression.