Research on the Split Brain
The human brain is split into two spheres. The left sphere and the right sphere. Before 1961 people believed the sphere was "just a long for the ride." People believed this because when people had tumors, strokes and other types of damage to the left sphere they would struggle with reading, writing, speaking, etc, but when damage occurred to the right hemisphere there was seldom dramatic effects such as the aforementioned issues that occur in the left sphere.
As I stated earlier this used to be common belief, but in 1961 when two LA neurosurgeons, Phillip Vogel and Joseph Bogen, made a ground breaking discovery in psychology. They had a patient who was experiencing major epileptic seizures that were caused by abnormal brain activity bouncing back and forth from sphere to sphere. To put an end to this they severed the corpus callosum, a wide band of axon fibers that connect the left and right spheres of the human brain. They knew that psychologists Ronald Meyers and Michel Gazzaniga had divided the brains of cats and monkeys with no bad effects. So with this knowledge they operated and the seizures disappeared. Through this operation we learned that each of the spheres can operate independently. This is contrary to previous thoughts that each sphere had different jobs that they were responsible for.
Below is a link to Psychology Today that goes more in depth on Meyers and Gazzaniga's experiments on cats and monkeys and discusses new research that is being done today about the split brain. The second link is a video about the split brain theory that was developed in 1974 by Roger W. Sperry. His theory basically says that each side of our brain has a different function and personality. The video will go much more in depth and better explain this theory.
Link:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/split-brains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMFSu0iPm_g
As I stated earlier this used to be common belief, but in 1961 when two LA neurosurgeons, Phillip Vogel and Joseph Bogen, made a ground breaking discovery in psychology. They had a patient who was experiencing major epileptic seizures that were caused by abnormal brain activity bouncing back and forth from sphere to sphere. To put an end to this they severed the corpus callosum, a wide band of axon fibers that connect the left and right spheres of the human brain. They knew that psychologists Ronald Meyers and Michel Gazzaniga had divided the brains of cats and monkeys with no bad effects. So with this knowledge they operated and the seizures disappeared. Through this operation we learned that each of the spheres can operate independently. This is contrary to previous thoughts that each sphere had different jobs that they were responsible for.
Below is a link to Psychology Today that goes more in depth on Meyers and Gazzaniga's experiments on cats and monkeys and discusses new research that is being done today about the split brain. The second link is a video about the split brain theory that was developed in 1974 by Roger W. Sperry. His theory basically says that each side of our brain has a different function and personality. The video will go much more in depth and better explain this theory.
Link:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-superhuman-mind/201211/split-brains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMFSu0iPm_g