PSYC 311 Chapter Notes - Chapter Reading 5 and 6 - Split-Brain - Gazzaniga: Roger Wolcott Sperry, Optic Chiasm, Lisa Lopes

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 311
• Professor: Michalakis Petrides

Document Summary

Roger sperry: when the connection between the two cerebrum was cut, each hemisphere functioned independently as if it were a complete brain. Investigations were first carried out with cats who also had a severed optic chiasm. This ensured that information from the left eye was only relayed to the left brain. Working on a problem with one eye, the animal could respond normally and learn to perform a task. Sperry investigated these questions further at the california institute of technology over the past decade. He investigated human patients who underwent the brain splitting operation for medical reasons. This surgery was used for people with severe epilepsies, in order to confine the seizure to only one hemisphere reduce damage. A striking observation was that the operation produced no noticeable change in the patient" temperament, personality, or general intelligence. It seemed as if the purpose of the corpus callosum was to facilitate seizure activity.