-Earlier, around 1940 there was no other cure for people with a special kind of Epilepsy, then cutting off the connection between the two brain hemispheres. That coused that the dissease could not attack the other part of the brain and the person could function quite normally after the surgery-
2. What was the reason why this procedure was performed on patients?
-It was a cure of a special kind of Epilepsy
3. Explain one of the tests Sperry and Gazzaniga performed on these split brain patients.
-The duo's first patient was a man known as W. J., a former Second World War paratrooper who had started having seizures after a German soldier clocked him in the head with the butt of a rifle. In 1962, after W.J.'s surgery, Gazzaniga ran an experiment in which he asked W.J. to press a button whenever he saw an image. Researchers would then flash images of letters, light bursts and other stimuli to his left or right field of view.
4. What were the results of this test?
-For stimuli delivered to the left hemisphere, W.J. showed no hang-ups; he simply pressed the button and told the scientists what he saw. With the right hemisphere, W.J. said he saw nothing, yet his left hand kept pressing the button every time an image appeared. “The left and right didn't know what the other was doing,” says Gazzaniga. It was a important discovery showing that the brain is more divided than anyone had predicted
5. What is the reason that these results occurred?
-Because the left field of view is processed by the right hemisphere and vice versa, flashing images quickly to one side or the other delivers the information solely to the intended hemisphere.
6. What is the corpus callosum and what role does it serve in your brain?
-The corpus callosum is a thick band of nerve fibers that divides the cerebrum into left and right hemispheres. It connects the left and right sides of the brain allowing for communication between both hemispheres. The corpus callosum transfers motor, sensory, and cognitive information between the brain hemispheres.
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