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Split-brain patients have been subjects for numerous psychological experiments that sought to discover what occurs in the brain after the primary interhemispheric pathways have been disrupted. Notable researchers in the field include Roger Sperry , one of the first to publish ideas involving a dual consciousness; and his famous graduate student ...
A similar effect occurs if a split-brain patient touches an object with only the left hand while receiving no visual cues in the right visual field; the patient will be unable to name the object, as each cerebral hemisphere of the primary somatosensory cortex only contains a tactile representation of the opposite side of the body. If the speech ...
Callosal syndrome, or split-brain, is an example of a disconnection syndrome from damage to the corpus callosum between the two hemispheres of the brain. Disconnection syndrome can also lead to aphasia , left-sided apraxia , and tactile aphasia, among other symptoms.
Research by Michael Gazzaniga and Roger Wolcott Sperry in the 1960s on split-brain patients led to an even greater understanding of functional laterality. Split-brain patients are patients who have undergone corpus callosotomy (usually as a treatment for severe epilepsy), a severing of a large part of the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum ...
In split-brain patients, the corpus callosum is cut, severing the main structure for communication between the two hemispheres. The first modern split-brain patient was a war veteran known as Patient W.J., [10] whose case contributed to further understanding of asymmetry. Brain asymmetry is not unique to humans.
In certain split-brain patients who have undergone a corpus callosotomy to treat severe epilepsy, the information from one optic tract does not get transmitted to both hemispheres. For instance, a split-brain patient shown an image in the left visual field will be unable to vocally name what has been seen as the speech-control center is in the ...
Sperry studied patients who had undergone corpus callosotomy and detailed their resulting split-brain characteristics. [ 2 ] Improvements to surgical techniques, along with refinements of the indications, have allowed van Wagenen's procedure to endure; corpus callosotomy is still commonly performed throughout the world. [ 5 ]
Moreover, a study that instructed patients with disconnected hemispheres (i.e., split-brain patients) to match spoken words to written words presented to the right or left hemifields, reported vocabulary in the right hemisphere that almost matches in size with the left hemisphere [111] (The right hemisphere vocabulary was equivalent to the ...