Unlike Tatiana and Krista, their sense of touch is limited to their half of the body. Each twin has her own heart, stomach, spine, lungs, and spinal cord, but share a bladder, large intestine, liver, diaphragm, and reproductive organs. They are symmetric conjoined twins with normal proportions. In the case of 25-year old Abigail “Abby” Hensel and Brittany Hensel, each twin fully controls her half of the body - one leg and one arm on either side. Yet, tracing and deciphering what their neural pathways will do is still largely unknown, especially because craniopagus twins are so rare with little literature published on their brain structures and abilities. Juliette Hukin, from BC Children’s Hospital, described their brain structure as “mind-blowing.” When one sees an image through her eyes, the other receives the image milliseconds later. Essentially, if one thinks a happy thought, the other can perceive it. The girls are still too young to investigate their neurological wiring, but from the MRI scans, doctors have determined this “thalamic bridge” links one sister’s sensory input to the other, creating a conscious loop. The girls are developmentally delayed because they’re attached at the thalamus - a region of the brain that involves sensory perception and motor function. Tatiana hates ketchup and will scream when Krista eats it. When they write, their mind is prompted to anticipate the next word. If one twin’s leg is touched, the other would feel it. In the case of 8-year-old Tatiana and Krista Hogan, twins born conjoined and connected at the tops of their heads, their mental processes affect each other. But in the case of a set of craniopagus twins, which occurs in only one in 2.5 million births, they share neural activity because their skulls are connected. Thinking And Writingįor 98 percent of all sets of conjoined twins, each person has their own separate and distinct thoughts and feelings. Being physically attached to your sibling via the chest, hip, or head changes the type of bodily functions they share. Living life as a conjoined twin completely eliminates the possibility of true privacy. The case of craniophagus makes up only 2 percent of conjoined twins born alive. The rarest type of conjoined twins is connected at the head. In the case of omphalopagus, which makes up 33 percent of all conjoined twins, they may share a liver, gastrointestinal tract, and reproductive organs, but rarely share a heart. The second most common type of conjoined twins is connected from the breastbone to the waist. Roughly 40 percent of all conjoined twins are thoracopagus. They share a heart, making it nearly impossible to surgically separate them without one or both twins dying. There are nearly a dozen different types of conjoined twins, but one of the most commonly connected twins - thoracopagus twins - are attached at the upper portion of the torso. During the first few weeks of gestation, the egg develops into an embryo that begins to split into identical twins, but the partially separated egg stops splitting and begins growing into a conjoined fetus. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, 40 to 60 percent of conjoined twins are stillbirths, and another 35 percent only survive a day after they’re born.Ĭonjoined twins are born from the same egg which does not fully separate once it’s fertilized. One in every 200,000 live births results in a set of conjoined twins, and their chances of survival are between just 5 and 25 percent.
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The life of a conjoined twin is complex, extraordinary, and emblematic of public intrigue, driving experts to want to pry into the intimacy of their lives and ask the questions: How do they feel, think, write, run, and engage in sexual activity?
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Despite the lack of scientific investigation on conjoined twins, medical knowledge continues to grow with each surgery, autopsy, and laboratory test. With their lives reliant on their physical connection to one another, their chances of survival are low.