Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 ...
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 domestic dogs (Canis familiaris), there is a correlation between motor laterality and noise sensitivity - a lack of paw preference is associated with noise-related fearfulness. (Branson and Rogers, 2006) [ citation needed ] Fearfulness is an undesirable trait in guide dogs, therefore, testing for laterality can be a useful predictor of a ...
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.
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.
The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres has an outer layer of grey matter, the cerebral cortex, that is supported by an inner layer of white matter. In eutherian (placental) mammals, the hemispheres are linked by the corpus callosum, a very large bundle of nerve fibers.
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 ]
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 ...