History Main / BrainTransplant

* In Creator/HPLovecraft's "Literature/TheWhispererInDarkness" the Mi-Go have a tendency to put [[BrainInAJar brains in jars]] and can easily put them back in bodies, not necessarily their original ones. [[spoiler:Even brains of their species in human bodies.]]

* In Creator/HPLovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness" the Mi-Go have a tendency to put [[BrainInAJar brains in jars]] and can easily put them back in bodies, not necessarily their original ones. [[spoiler: Even brains of their species in human bodies.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/IAmWeasel''. In "I, Architect," an accident results in both Weasel and Baboon having their skulls cracked open and their brains falling out. Because Weasel's brain is so massive and Baboon's is so tiny, the surgeons place the smaller brain into Weasel's smaller head and the large brain into Baboon's larger head. As a result, when awaken, Weasel [[TookALevelInDumbass becomes an idiot]] and the changes he makes to the city are chaotic, whereas Baboon continues to move up in society and plans to stop Weasel from destroying the city with his stupidity.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K''. One of the reasons ork paindoks are feared is that they occasionally replace a patient's brain with that of a squig, leaving them comatose for a while while they adapt, then leaving them semifunctional zombies only fit to follow the dok's orders.

* ''Series/OutOfJimmysHead'' has this happen to the eponymous character, using the brain of a MrAltDisney. However, the retention of the [ArtisticLicenseBiology "personality gland"]] lets Jimmy keep everything that's himself.

* ''Series/OutOfJimmysHead'' has this happen to the eponymous character, using the brain of a MrAltDisney. However, the retention of the personality gland" lets Jimmy keep everything that's himself.

* ''Manga/BlackJack'', being a series that applies AnimePhysics to the MedicalDrama genre, unsurprisingly has this on occasion.
** In one notable case he gave an artist who had been painting landscapes on an island during an H-bomb test a new body to save him from radiation poisoning. He died anyway from brain cancer but not before completing one last painting.
** Another chapter had a horse's brain put in a man's body to incriminate his owner's killer.

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brain_transplant.jpg]]

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-->'''Baloney:''' "Now, where did you get the brain of a two-year-old?"
-->'''Dr. Fruitcake:''' "Trust me, Baloney, you don't want to know."

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* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'':
** Brain Transplants in general are quite common in all GITS works, often from one artificial body to another. In [[Anime/GhostInTheShell the movie]] the Major muses that she has no real way of knowing if she even has a brain in her current body.

* ''Manga/BlackJack'', being a series that applies AnimePhysics to the MedicalDrama genre, unsurprisingly has this on occasion. In one notable case he gave an artist who had been painting landscapes on an island during an H-bomb test a new body to save him from radiation poisoning. He died anyway from brain cancer but not before completing one last painting.

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* At the end of ''Film/TheManWithTwoBrains'', Dr Hfuhruhurr, inventor of "cranial screw-top brain surgery", transplants the BrainInAJar he's been dating into the body of his evil wife.
* This has been a staple of ''Franchise/{{Frankenstein}}'' films ever since the [[Film/{{Frankenstein 1931}} 1931]] film where the monster received the brain of a violent criminal.
* In ''Film/TheGhostOfFrankenstein'' Ygor makes Dr. Frankenstein transplant his (Ygor's) brain into the monster's body so they'll be "together forever." Unfortunately they don't have the same blood type so Ygor!Monster is blind, leading to the eyes closed/arms outstretched shuffle that the Monster is Flanderized into having.
* In ''Film/AbbottAndCostelloMeetFrankenstein'' Dracula's plan involves transplanting Costello's brain into the monster.
* In ''Film/TheBrainThatWouldntDie'', a young, mad scientist's girlfriend is beheaded in a car accident. He takes her head back to his lab and keeps it alive with his mad science. Then he searches for another girl who won't be missed, so he can chop her head off and transplant his girlfriend's head on.

* Played for laughs in ''Film/YoungFrankenstein''. The monster is supposed to receive the brain of a supersmart person but Igor drops the jar and secretly replaces the brain with one that is marked ''abnormal''. The actual brain transplant is executed in an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome. When the monster awakes, of course it turns out to be a moron.

!Examples

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* This has been a staple of ''Film/{{Frankenstein}}'' films ever since the [[Film/{{Frankenstein1931}} 1931]] film where the monster received the brain of a violent criminal.

* In the first episode of ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex'' a politician attempted to swap his cyberbrain (a brain enclosed in cybernetics, as common as cell phones) into a waitress gynoid, but a foreign agent instead put his own brain in the politician's body and tried to smuggle the politician's brain out of the country in a suitcase. And they did that all in a restaurant men's room.
** Brain Transplants in general are quite common in all renditions of GhostInTheShell, often from one artificial body to another. In [[Anime/GhostInTheShell the movie]] the Major muses that she has no real way of knowing if she even has a brain in her current body.

* The TV movie ''[[Series/OutOfJImmysHead Re-Animated]]'' has the main character needing an emergency brain transplant with the brain of cartoonist [[MrAltDisney Milt Appleday]], resulting in him being able to see his cartoon creations.

* ''Series/OutOfJimmysHead'' has this happen to the eponymous character. However, the retention of the personality gland" lets Jimmy keep everything that's himself.

* Referenced in ''Film/ToyStory'': while Sid swaps the heads of his sister's doll and a toy pterodactyl, he role-plays like he's a surgeon performing a dangerous "double-bypass brain transplant".

* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''. In one episode, Ron dreams that he is on work expereince at a hospital, when Kim is brought in from a mission. Ron goes to the ward where Kim is taken where he and the other doctors see that she has caught a disease that has paralysed her into making do a really goofy smile on her face. It is discovered that to cure Kim of the disease, she must be given someone else's brain, so one of the doctors unscrews his own skull and volunteers his brain for transplant. All of a sudden, everyone else in the room (except for Ron) catches the disease, so Ron has to take the brain from the doctor and insert into Kim's head.

* The closest thing that has been done in real life is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant Head Transplants]] on test animals like dogs and monkeys. They were quadriplegic because their spinal cords in the head and torso could not attach, but they could breathe and eat, though [[AndIMustScream vocalization is unlikely]]. Fortunately, to our knowledge it has never been attempted with humans.