Roger Sperry's Split-Brain Research

The progress of neuroscience has been significant in the past 500 years. and with the advance of technology, there is yet a multitude of chapters left to write in the history books of neuroscience. The book The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: written by Sam Kean was an engrossing and captivating read. It gives the reader a better appreciation for the growing pains of neuroscience and provides an educational, albeit entertaining overview of the anatomy and physiology of the brain and nervous system. From the early life and discoveries of Santiago Ramón y Cajal and his fascination with Golgi’s method la razione nera, which allowed Cajal to deduct after observing

This video is about The Behaving Brain; it explains how the brain and amnesia work. According to the video, neurons duties are to receive information from other cells, process this information, and transmitting it to the rest of the body. This is done by traveling through dendrites, to the soma, to the axon, to the terminal buttons. Constant nerve flow helps regulate our metabolism, temperature, and respiration. It also enables learning and the ability to comprehend. The brain is connected to the brain stem, which is connected to the cerebellum, which is connected to the limbic system. The limbic system is made up of the amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, and thalamus. The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain, where things are

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the correlational method as a means for examining the relationship between functions of the left and right hemispheres. I will compare the performance of people with intact brains with the performance of so-called split-brain patients. In many ways, the brains of these two groups are very similar. 1a. The brain stem is found in the deepest part of the brain. The brainstem controls the automatic survival functions of the body, such as breathing. There are no differences between the function of the normal brainstem and the brain of a split brain patient. The brainstem will still supply the automatic survival functions of the body. 1b. The hippocampus is found in the limbic system along with the amygdala, the hypothalamus. The hippocampus is in charge of allowing the body to process information into memories. Without the hippocampus, there is no way for new memories to be created. There is no anatomical difference between the hippocampus in the normal brain and a split brain. 1c. The corpus callosum is found in the center of the brain. The role it plays as a part of the brain is it connects both the left and right hemispheres of the brain, allowing them to work and interact together as a whole system. The difference between the anatomy of the corpus callosum in a split brain patient versus someone without a

Fine dissects the greater male lateralization (GML) hypothesis that males “are more strongly left hemisphere dominant for language processing and right hemisphere dominant for visuospatial processing” (Fine 280). Females, on the other hand, are thought to engage in both hemispheres

* In split-brain surgery the bundle of fibers that connects cerebral hemispheres (the corpus callosum) is cut to reduce the severity of epileptic seizures.

When it comes to the topic of having a growth mindset, most of us will readily agree that students who are praised are motivated to learn. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of how they are praised. Whereas some are convinced that praising students for their intelligence will motivate them to learn, others maintain that encouraging them for their efforts has a better impact on their motivation.

According to the theory of lateralisation developed by Robert Sperry and Robert Ornstein, the cerebral cortex in the two hemispheres perform the same motor and sensory functions but each of the hemisphere is specialized for different tasks. As the brain develops, the left hemisphere is superior in doing tasks that involve speech, language, reading, and writing. The right hemisphere shows superiority in tasks that involves creativity, intuition, facial recognition, non-verbal imagery, musical recognition, sense of direction, play and sports, learning experience and risk-taking. Lateralisation is developed for the task that is done, that is the right hemisphere is used for a particular function. This decision is influenced by genetics, childhood learning experiences and

The human brain is a wondrous invention that has many scientists and researchers very busy to this very day. There are numerous qualities about the brain humans know about, yet there are still a great number of mysteries to the brain and how it functions left to be discovered and shared. Some facts scientists do know about the brain is that it is divided into to primary sections, called hemispheres. Each person has a left and right hemisphere of the brain. Each hemisphere is in charge of specific abilities, tasks, and functions. This paper will review what each hemisphere is responsible for and describe ways that each hemisphere is predisposed to learn.

Mead & Hampson (1996) developed a study involving the divided visual field paradigm and a phonological rhyme/non-rhyme task to test the speed and accurateness of either side of the brain. This study was used to investigate functional asymmetry between the left and right hemispheres in phonological processing. The research was taken out equally on 15 male and 15 females London Metropolitan University students ranging from ages 18 – 35 years old. They were all specifically chosen to be right–handed and had English as their first language thus providing a fair experiment to see whether our left hemisphere (left side of the brain) or the right hemisphere is faster and more accurate. In conclusion using the mean and standard

According to Hetherington and Parke (2002), studies of brain imaging identified that in female bilateralism there were greater amounts of blood flow. The male brain reflects greater lateralization attributing to a higher success rate in spatial tasks and mathematics.

Left-right brain dominance is about the fact that the distinct hemispheres influence thinking. The left hemisphere is associated with logical, analytical thinking and a linear approach to problem solving. The right hemisphere is associated with creative, intuitive and value-based thought process. It is important to note that everyone uses its both hemispheres, but to varying degrees. Four quadrants of the brain, related to different thinking style, have been identified:

The other test held was an auditory test. The test was done in two different ways. One way was finding the objects in a bag that were mentioned verbally and the other was identifying the item reached by touch. This test’s results were also supporting the previous researchers’ logical conclusion about the left hemisphere ability of speech. It confirmed the right hemisphere’s ability of comprehending language and its ability of expressing it in a nonverbal way. During the test, evidently, the right hemisphere had no trouble identifying the unknown objects by touch as the left hemisphere did. Moreover, some three- dimensional drawings of the slit-brain patients, who were all right handed, developed much better drawings using their left hands compared with their right hands.

directly due to either being left brain or right brain. What is left brain or right brain you ask?

For many decades people have been considered to be either right or left side dominant in regards to brain function which came with defined roles such as “creative” or “analytical”. This thinking tends to be over-simplified as most people use their entire brains daily (Jensen, 2010). On the other hand people do use different parts of their brain for different tasks according to how they perceive those tasks.

Different statistics study shows that certain percentage of population belong to particular category is likely to be left or right handed. The motor homunculus as shown in the picture represent the division of motor cortex that contribute to different structures of the body. Hand movement involve fine control over the motor area. The differentiation occur in the region of brain more particularly in the motor cortex in the cerebrum. For right handedness people the left hemisphere of the brain dominates and vice versa.. Researchers from University of Oxford and its collaborated universities found the link between the handedness and gene that is involved in this process which is mainly PCSK6 gene[1]. A study conducted with approximately 54,000 individuals revealed that 24% handedness is contributed by genetic factor. [2] These gene can be influenced by cultural and social pressure that can result in right handedness child born to left handed parents. Broca 's area that controls the speech and language is