Split-Brain Research History of split-brain research Walter Dandy, an American neurosurgeon unintentionally paved the way into research on split-brain patients in the 1930s. Split-Brain refers to patients who have had their corpus callosum severed to some extent or in whole. This procedure was mainly used as an extremely invasive surgical procedure within patients suffering from intractable epileptic seizures. The corpus callosum consists of over 200 million nerve fibres connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain and enables corresponding regions to communicate. During one of Dandy’s surgeries, he had to cut through corpus callosum of a patient in order to get to an underlying pineal tumour. Following surgery, Dandy observed and performed psychological and cognitive tests and concluded that splitting the corpus callosum did not cause any changes in cognitive behaviour In the 1940s, Theordore Erickson performed experiments on monkeys, in which it became apparent that the corpus callosum plays a role in epileptic seizure spread. Neurosurgeons William Van Wagenen and R. Yorke Herren took this even further by performing and pioneering the first known callostomy – the surgical sectioning of the corpus callosum – specifically to combat epileptic seizures. Prior to and after surgery a series of tests were performed on these patients by a colleague - psychiatrist Andrew John Akelaitis. These tests included I.Q., motor skills, and memory testing and general interviews.
Brain research like this generally requires a live subject whether it is to be an animal or a human. Any experimental medical testing is always an ethical issue because of the potential risks that it poses such as pain, discomfort, death, or altercations to the subjects current state. There are many risks with brain research involving what might happen in the present and what could happen in the future.
The main purpose of this paper is to discuss what the psychological approach, the split brain case, and the multiple occupancy reply is and how they relate to Egan’s Learning To Be Me story. This essay will be first discussing what the psychological approach is and what the objection to it. It will also discuss what the split brain case is, what the multiple occupancy reply is, as well as how all of this ties into Egan’s text.
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
The nineteenth century saw an explosion in knowledge regarding the brain unlike any before. For centuries, the brain had been considered the seat of human intelligence. However, the brain of the classics was a singular organ of
* In split-brain surgery the bundle of fibers that connects cerebral hemispheres (the corpus callosum) is cut to reduce the severity of epileptic seizures.
Numerous researches and experiments have been done based on whether the human being possess one brain divided into two parts (left and right hemisphere) or whether we have two different brains working together. The psychologist Roger W. Sperry was the first on research this topic with some experiments on animals. Then, he later started working with Michael Gazzaniga. They were able to find split-brain patients. Those patients had their brain split as way of reducing or stopping uncontrollable epilepsy. Many agreed to participate in the experiments. The experiments that they held focused on finding out what kind of limitations would each brain have if they operated independently, how the 5 senses
Describe how an understanding of both a normally functioning brain and a split brain enables us to better appreciate the fact that most information processing takes place outside of
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, treatments were usually inadequate for people with severe depression. As a result, many desperate people were treated with lobotomy, a surgical operation involving incision into the prefrontal lobe of the brain, which had become a popular “calming” treatment at the time. Lobotomies were often unsuccessful, causing personality changes, inability to make decisions, and poor judgement; or even worse, coma and sometimes death. A popular treatment for schizophrenics called Electroconvulsive therapy, was also used as a treatment for depressed
Over the years, brain surgery has evolved substantially. Looking into multiple types of surgery, surgery is able to be quite unusual. Humans will cut into each other a lot of times in order to get rid of deadly disease and even just to remove excess body fat. The reality that we do not marvel about these on a daily basis shows how advanced surgery has grown over the years. Surgery is a safer and more reliable tool including a necessary component of health care. Previously, the surgeries themselves were brutal from lack of understandings toward anesthesia and none of the tools accessible today with operations forced and traumatic. With the present tools through surgery, brain surgery has changed greatly. This article chosen was aligning with
The brain is one of the most complicated things ever researched. Typically the brain is split into two halves. The left side of a person’s brain is used for critical and analytical thinking. When the brain is faced with a serious problem the left brain
In the novel Phineas Gage, A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman, Chapter 2 “What we thought about how we thought” tells about what doctors in the late 1800s thought about Brain Science. Phineas Gage was a man that lived in the late 1800s he had an accident were a tamping iron went through his cheek through his brain and out of his forehead. Whereas there were two schools of thought about how the brain worked,doctor's knowledge and standards were dangerous also their information about the brain was inaccurate.
An aspect of treatment that was new to me during this chapter was psychosurgery. I had heard of a lobotomy prior to the chapter, however, had never truly knew what it was. This method of treatment is not used today. A prefrontal lobotomy was once the most common form of psychosurgery. The procedure involved placing an icepick under the patient's eyelid, tapping the pick with a hammer, and trying to sever the connections between the frontal lobe and the thalamus. Before the procedure began, patients underwent electroconvulsive therapy until they were unconscious. The individual’s who went under this procedure exhibited violent behavior or lacked emotional control. The process stopped in the 1950’s once the antipsychotic medications became available.
The two psychological interventions that were administered to McMurphy while in the mental institution were a lobotomy and shock therapy. A lobotomy is the removal of the portion from the frontal lobe of the brain. This procedure’s main goal is to eliminate aggressive or violent behavior. This invention took place in 1935 by Dr. Antonio Egas Moniz. However, by the late 1940s the realization those individuals undergoing lobotomy procedures took place without initiative became apparent. Although the methods of a lobotomy have changed the basic underlying idea of neurosurgery exists today in the form of “psychosurgery” (Encarta 2000). Shock Therapy uses electric current or drugs to control psychotic disorders. In 1933, Dr. Manfred Sakel used drugs and instituted insulin shock to control mainly Schizophrenia. In 1938, Drs. U. Cerletti and L. Bini used electroshock therapy to treat severe depression (i.e. manic depressive psychoses). Alternating current through the brain using parallel
Split brain patients lateralize functions in their brains to either side of the brains while intact brain patients utilize both sides of their brains. A group of 20 subjects were tested, 10 split brain and 10 intact brain patients. We gave these subjects three exams, a vocabulary test, a logical reasoning task and a face recognition task. We found that split brain patients have a lower correlation between these exams compared to those of an intact brain. If we were to replicate this exam we will receive roughly the same numbers, but if done so more patients to
discuss how each side of the brain can have negative or positive impacts of solutions, and will