History Main / BrainTransplant

*** ''ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron'' has Bib contact another Twi'lek who takes him from the monastery and abuses him in the process of trying to find out about Jabba's hidden caches of treasure. Bib turns the tables by 'rescuing' him after a run in with Rogue Squadron, dragging him to a droid-run medical facility. The droids, following the directions of what they imagine is a loyal servant droid, perform a brain transplant and install a restraining bolt on the spider droid.

* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': Monks of the B'Omarr order have their brains removed [[BrainInAJar and placed into life-support jars]] upon reaching enlightenment so they can continue to contemplate the universe forever. Less scrupulous B'Omarr initiates have been known to perform the operation on unwilling patients and even reverse it, implanting brains into other bodies. One of the short stories in ''Literature/TalesFromJabbasPalace'' implies that Bib Fortuna eventually manages to escape his AndIMustScream fate this way.

* In ''Film/GetOut'', [[spoiler:a community of middle-aged-to-elderly white people kidnap young, healthy black people for this purpose, allowing them to effectively live forever and appropriate the "coolness" that black Americans are perceived to have]].

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[[quoteright:350:[[TabletopGame/ArkhamHorror https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/brain_transplant.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:A mind is a terrible thing to cut-and-paste.]]

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** 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.
** Pinoko, Black Jack's surrogate daughter, started off as a parasitic tumor/cyst on her twin sister. Jack had her brain and other organs (that were independent of her twin) transplanted into an artificial body.
* ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'': Brain Transplants in general are quite common in all GITS works, often from one artificial body to another.
** In [[Anime/GhostInTheShell1995 the first movie]] the Major muses that she has no real way of knowing if she even has a brain in her current body.
** 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.
* ''Manga/JujutsuKaisen'': Kenjaku ([[IHaveManyNames AKA]] [[spoiler:Noritoshi Kamo or Suguru Geto]]) has {{Body Surf}}ed through a millennia's worth of hosts by tearing their brains out and replacing it with his own. [[spoiler:That's why "Geto" in the present has a stitch in his forehead.]] Disturbingly, he can casually pop his skull open to show his brain has ''[[TooManyMouths its own mouth]]'', suggesting it's some sort of BrainMonster PuppeteerParasite.

** Robotman's origin was that he was a racecar driver named Cliff Steele who survived a severe accident when the Chief put his brain into a robot body (an origin that was later retconned so that the Chief caused the accident in question in the first place). The "Titans Around the World" arc of Geoff Johns' run on ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' would also reveal that the Brain was originally intended to be the brain to be put into the Robotman body before Monsieur Mallah rescued the Brain from the Chief's lab and the Chief subsequently made do with Cliff Steele.
** Grunt, a member of the team introduced in John Byrne's run through the "Tenth Circle" arc of ''ComicBook/JLA1997'' that served as a PoorlyDisguisedPilot, is revealed in the series' tenth issue to be a teenage boy named Henry Bucher who became what he is now when a MadScientist surgically transplanted his brain into the skull of a four-armed gorilla.

* Franchise/{{Batman}} foe the Gorilla Boss was created when mobster George "The Boss" Dyke had his brain transplanted into the body of a gorilla following his execution in the gas chamber. And that's awesome.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':
** The Ultra-Humanite, the first supervillain that Superman faced (in fact, the first supervillain ''ever'' in a Creator/DCComics story), was a MadScientist who was seemingly killed in a battle against the Man of Steel. However, he had his henchman briefly revive him so he could implant his brain into the body of actress Dolores Winters and continue his schemes. He would transplant his brain into many different bodies over the years, including various superheroes when he had the opportunity, before settling on an albino gorilla.
** Lex Luthor II, the Australian son of Lex Luthor in the nineties, eventually turned out to be Lex Luthor I's brain in a cloned body with better hair. Then, after CloneDegradation and a DealWithTheDevil, he returned as Lex Luthor I and successfully claimed that the clone was nothing to do with him.
* The French comic ''Une Femme Dans la peau'' or ''Johanna'' uses this as a plot point, but plays more as a GenderBender story. Long story short, a middle-aged, lecherous, businessman ends up hit by a bus the same day a beautiful blond twenty-something ODs. Both corpses are acquired by an elderly Nazi scientist and used as the first test of an experimental brain-swapping procedure. It works... but the scientist gets [[ShockAndAwe fried]] for his trouble. Now, the businessman has to deal with being a blonde bombshell, starting his/her life over, and having to dodge the scientist's elderly Nazi-Remnant chums and stop them from using the procedure in a two-for-one FountainOfYouth/[[TakeOverTheWorld World Domination]] plot.
* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'': While Golden Age Giganta was the result of a gorilla going through an DevolutionDevice her later iterations are the result of Dr. Zeul's mind being transferred, at least temporarily as an emergency measure, into one.

* 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.

* 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 the Ygor-Monster is blind, leading to the [[ZombieGait eyes closed/arms outstretched shuffle]] that the Monster is commonly {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed 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.
* ''Film/TheAtomicBrain'' deals with an old rich woman who seeks to cheat death by having her brain put into the body of a young, healthy woman. The scientist in charge of doing this does a number of tests on dead bodies, which makes them mindless bodies, but doing so with live bodies works wonders. The woman's plan gets [[SpannerInTheWorks derailed]] due to her initial choice getting mauled, her companion attempting to betray her, and the scientist putting her in a ''cat's'' body.
* 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.
* In ''Film/LadyFrankenstein'', Tanya uses her father's techniques to transplant the brain of her aging lover Charles into the body of the physically perfect but mentally defective stable hand Thomas.
* In ''Film/JesseJamesMeetsFrankensteinsDaughter'', Maria Frankenstein transplants her grandfather's artificial brain into Hank's body.
* ''Film/ABCsOfDeath2'': "Q [[spoiler:is for Questionnaire]]" ends with the man's brain being put into the body of a gorilla.
* ''Film/MonsterMash1995'' has Dr. Frankenstein scheme to put Scott's brain into the body of his monster.
* In ''Film/Criminal2016'', recently deceased CIA agent Bill Pope has his memories grafted into the mind of violent convict Jericho Stewart in order for him to complete the dead agent's assignment for the CIA.
* ''Film/{{Sharkenstein}}'': [[MadScientist Klaus]] has Coop, Madge, and Skip assist him in transplanting the brain and heart of FrankensteinsMonster into Sharkenstein after he takes the latter's brain out.
* ''Film/GetOut'': [[spoiler: a community of middle-aged-to-elderly white people kidnap young, healthy black people for this purpose, allowing them to effectively live forever and appropriate the "coolness" that black Americans are perceived to have.]]
* In ''Film/TheMonsterAndTheGirl'', a mild-mannered church organist, wrongfully convicted of murder, agrees to let a local scientist use his remains for medical research. He ends up with his brain transplanted into the body of a gorilla, and [[KillerGorilla uses his new strength]] to get revenge on the mobsters who framed him and kidnapped his sister.

* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/IWillFearNoEvil'', the protagonist has their brain transplanted into a woman's body, it doesn't end well. The event is later mentioned in ''Literature/TimeEnoughForLove'' when the possibility of being transferred into an OppositeSexClone is suggested to Lazarus Long, he rejects it.
* In ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'''s ''Mastermind of Mars'', the bulk of [[MadScientist Ras Thavas']] research involves swapping people's brains. He's even made a business out of it, transplanting the brains of the old and wealthy and/or powerful into younger bodies.
* In the short ''Literature/TheMonsterOfLakeLametrie'' a pair of scientists discover an Elasmosaur living in a lake in the Wyoming mountains, soon after the beast is killed and one of the men dies, the other decides to transplant the brain of his companion into the body of the creature.
* In Creator/HPLovecraft's "Literature/TheWhispererInDarkness" the Mi-Go have a tendency to put [[BrainInAJar brains in jars]] and at least claim they can easily put them back in bodies, not necessarily their original ones.
* In ''{{Literature/SI}}'' ([[https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3214035/1/SI link]]), the protagonist is awakened from cryonic suspension, and suffers severe ethylene glycol poisoning. Fortunately there happened to be a body nearby that lacked a central nervous system.
* ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': Monks of the B'Omarr order have their brains removed [[BrainInAJar and placed into life-support jars]] upon reaching enlightenment so they can continue to contemplate the universe forever. Less scrupulous B'Omarr initiates have been known to perform the operation on unwilling patients and even reverse it, implanting brains into other bodies. One of the short stories in ''Literature/TalesFromJabbasPalace'' implies that Bib Fortuna eventually manages to escape his AndIMustScream fate that way.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS13E5TheBrainOfMorbius "The Brain of Morbius"]], BrainInAJar Morbius intends to have himself transplanted into the Doctor's head.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWho2016CSTheReturnOfDoctorMysterio "The Return of Doctor Mysterio"]], the aliens have their brains transplanted into human hosts by a team of scary surgeons.

* ''Series/Mouse2021'': Seo-joon transplants part of Yo-han's brain into Ba-reum's skull. He previously experimented with transplanting mice's brains. None of the mice survived, and [[spoiler: neither does Ba-reum]].

* Happened in a HalloweenEpisode of ''Series/TwoGuysAGirlAndAPizzaPlace'', complete with a Mad Scientist character, who switches Pete's brain with Ashley's brain and Berg's brain with Sharon's brain and the only one who can help them is Johnny.

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* In the ''Series/TheMrPotatoHeadShow'' episode, "Royal Pain", Dr. Fruitcake rebuilds his creation, Hammy the Ham Monster (who was destroyed by Baloney in the episode, "Aliens Dig Baloney"). To ensure Hammy is much more tame this time around, Dr. Fruitcake has given him the brain of a two-year old child.
-->'''Baloney:''' Now, where did you get the brain of a two-year-old?\\
'''Dr. Fruitcake:''' Trust me, Baloney, you don't want to know.
[[/folder]]

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': 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.
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'': Ghoritch was once a Norse berserker before falling into the clutches of the mad surgeon Throt the Unclean, who transplanted his brain into the body of a heavily modified cyborg Rat Ogre.

* ''VideoGame/Psychonauts2'' has a character whose brain was [[BrainTheft stolen]] used as a temporary body for a character who had been reduced to a BrainInAJar after losing his body years ago. [[spoiler: As it turns out, that body is of the BigBad and his brain was not stolen -- he had it transplanted into the leader of the Psychonauts to act as TheMole, making him another example]].
* ''VideoGame/SurgeonSimulator2013'' has a brain surgery mission. In which the entire brain is removed and a new brain is roughly placed in the same place.

* ''VideoGame/Disgaea6DefianceOfDestiny'': [[spoiler: Following his intense beating at the hands of Overlord Ivar, Sage Misual finds himself wandering into a Netherworld where the dead roam. This is where he meets the zombie siblings Zed and Bieko, the latter of whom manages to transplant Misual's brain into that of a zombified dog, creating Cerberus.]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Narbonic}}'' after Dave's first death Helen reanimates him, but after some shenanigans involving Madblood using his brain in an alcohol solution (drunk robot - bad idea...) for a WetwareCPU, she eventually clones a new body for him and transplants the brain into it.
** In the {{Costumer}} Sunday strip there's quite a lot of brains changing bodies, some of them cross-species (Venusian to human, and also human to Venusian).

* ''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, Baboon (in Weasel's body) starts making all sorts of chaotic changes to the city, whereas Weasel (in Baboon's body) has to move up from the bottom of society in order to stop Baboon's nonsense.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Inside Job|2021}}'' episode "Sex Machina" Andre attempts a ''Film/FaceOff'' style face transplant on the generically attractive Brett and hideous [[ArtificialHybrid dolphin-man]] Glenn so they can settle a bet, when that doesn't work out he puts their faces back and performs a brain transplant instead.
* ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''. In one episode, Ron dreams that he is on work experience 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 paralyzed 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, who voluntarily offers it up, and insert into Kim's head. [[RuleOfFunny Despite having someone else's brain, she acts as if she was the same as before.]]
* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', the top of Patrick's head gets broken off and when it is reattached he becomes a genius. [[FlowersForAlgernonSyndrome He eventually decides he prefers being stupid]] and while investigating why he became smarter discovers that he had actually replaced the top of his head with a similar-looking piece of brain coral, thus giving him a new brain.
* In the opening sequence the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' episode "Night of the Huntress", Solomon Grundy has kidnapped a scientist and ordered his henchmen to transplant the captive's brain into ''his'' head because he wants "a bigger brain". Presumably this makes sense to the not-too-bright Grundy, and the henchmen don't dare contradict him.

* Believe it or not, this [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant actually HAS been attempted a few times in real life]]. Of course, it doesn't involve actually removing the brain, but transplanting a living beings entire head to another body. Largely most tests have been conducted on animals; while they ''can'' be revived, they usually only live for a short few moments afterwards, and the expressions on their faces usually [[AndIMustScream don't paint a pleasant picture]]. Needless to say, the ethics surrounding it have shut down experimentation of this on animals after 60s; though experiments with [[LabRat mice]] are still being conducted.

Kind of an older trope, now largely superseded by BrainUploading. A Brain Transplant is what happens when a MadScientist saws open your skull, removes your brain, and puts it in someone else's body. The details, such as how the transplanted brain interfaces with the new body's nervous system, or how immune rejection is bypassed, tend to be HandWaved. In RealLife we don't yet have the technology to connect a brain from one person to the spinal cord of another, so at best this would result in an "AndIMustScream" situation.