Altruistic kidney donors are often motivated by personal or prosocial reasons. They tend to exhibit strong social and emotional responsiveness, on both psychological and neurological measures. Distinct demographic and neurobiological characteristics support the extraordinary altruism of people who donate a kidney to a stranger.
What is the difference between altruistic kidney donation and directed kidney donation?
Altruistic kidney donation is when a living person donates a kidney to someone they don’t know who needs a transplant. This differs from directed donation, where the donor knows and intends to donate to a specific individual.
Altruistic kidney donation is also known as non-directed kidney donation.
What are the motivating factors for altruistic kidney donors?
Common motivations include:
- Personal connections to kidney disease (including having had a family member on dialysis)
- Having a friend, relative, or acquaintance who previously donated
- Many altruistic kidney donors are also engaged in other altruistic behaviors
What do we know about the brains of altruistic kidney donors?
Neuroimaging studies show that altruistic kidney donors have increased right amygdala volume and heightened responsiveness to others’ distress. This suggests a biological basis for the strong social and emotional responsiveness that motivates altruistic kidney donation.
The personality and biological indicators for altruistic kidney donors tend to be the opposite of patterns seen in individuals with antisocial traits.
What are the mental health characteristics of altruistic kidney donors?
Altruistic donors generally have mental health profiles similar to or better than those of the general population and other organ donors. They report high satisfaction and positive psychological outcomes post-donation, with low rates of regret and no increase in psychological distress.
Bottom line: altruistic kidney donors tend to experience positive mental health outcomes after donation.
What does the research say about altruistic kidney donors?
Marsh, A., Stoycos, S., Brethel-Haurwitz, K., Robinson, P., VanMeter, J., & Cardinale, E. (2014). Neural and cognitive characteristics of extraordinary altruists. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111, 15036 – 15041. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1408440111.
Massey, E., Kranenburg, L., Zuidema, W., Hak, G., Erdman, R., Hilhorst, M., Ijzermans, J., Busschbach, J., & Weimar, W. (2010). Encouraging Psychological Outcomes After Altruistic Donation to a Stranger. American Journal of Transplantation, 10. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-6143.2010.03115.x.
Mor, E., Hod, T., Ghinea, R., Bar, A., & Singer, J. (2022). 247.1: Conditional Altruistic Living-Donor Kidney Donation in Israel and Its Impact on Living-Donor Kidney Transplant Growth. Transplantation. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.tp.0000886188.99222.ab.
Okidi, O., Sharma, V., Piscoran, O., Biggins, F., Singh, R., & Augustine, T. (2022). The altruistic elderly, a valuable but unrecognised kidney donor group. A case report of an 85-year-old unspecified kidney donor. BMC Geriatrics, 22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-022-03511-8.
Rees, M., Kopke, J., Pelletier, R., Segev, D., Rutter, M., Fabrega, A., Rogers, J., Pankewycz, O., Hiller, J., Roth, A., Sandholm, T., Ünver, U., & Montgomery, R. (2009). A nonsimultaneous, extended, altruistic-donor chain.. The New England journal of medicine, 360 11, 1096-101 . https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0803645.
