Split Brain

EXTRA LEARNING:
Some of you were interested in the condition known as split brain. Sometimes, there are electrical miscommunication problems between the two hemispheres of the brain, leading to severe seizures. So neurosurgeons usually sever the corpus callosum to prevent the two hemispheres from communicating with each other and thus stop the seizures. Some of you asked about the consequences of this procedure. On levels of both behavior and personality, neurologists have discovered that they essentially create two human beings, so to speak, since the two hemispheres do not communicate with one another and are not aware of what the other is doing (or thinking). Dr. Ramachandran of the University of California in San Diego (UCSD), for example, documented a patient whose split brain resulted in one hemisphere being atheistic and the hemisphere being theistic. In his lecture, Ramachandran talks about the case and makes a funny remark about its implications. And here is an older study about behavioral consequences from the perspective of a split brain patient.