Brain Hemisphere Organization and the Biology of Consciousness

A. Our Divided Brain

- Our brain’s look-alike left and right hemispheres serve differing functions. This lateralization is apparent after
brain damage. Research collected over more than a century has shown that accidents, strokes, and tumors in
the left hemisphere can impair reading, writing, speaking, arithmetic reasoning, and understanding. Similar
lesions in the right hemisphere have effects that are less visibly dramatic.

B. Right-Left Differences in the Intact Brain

C. The Biology of Consciousness

Lateralization

- specialization of the two cerebral hemispheres for particular operations

 Information that enters the left hemisphere travels across the corpus callosum going to the right side of the brain
and vice versa. The two hemispheres of the brain (right and left hemisphere) function interdependently.

Brain Lateralization
LEFT RIGHT
Analytical Thought Intuitive Thought
Detail oriented perception Holistic Perception
Ordered Sequencing Random Sequencing
Rational Thought Emotional Thought
Verbal Non-verbal
Cautious Adventurous
Planning Impulse
Math\Science Creative Writing/Art
Logic Imagination
Right Field Vision Left Field Vision
Right Side Motor skills Left Side Motor skills

Two Hemispheres

 The surface of the brain is covered with gyri and sulci. These gyri and sulci form important landmarks that allow us
to separate the brain into functional centers.

A deep sulcus is called a fissure

 Longitudinal fissure – most prominent sulcus; the deep groove that separates the brain into two halves or
hemispheres: the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere.

Corpus Callosum

-
the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying
messages between them.
 To photograph the half of the brain, a surgeon separates the hemispheres by cutting
through the corpus callosum and lower brain regions.

Split Brain
 - a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain’s two hemispheres by cutting the fibers (Mainly those
of the corpus callosum) connecting them.

Splitting the Brain

 Philip Vogel and Joseph Bogen - speculated that major epileptic seizures were caused by an amplification of
abnormal brain activity bouncing back and forth between the two cerebral hemispheres
 Sperry and Gazzaniga, cut this to stop seizures
 In an early experiment, Gazzaniga (1967) asked these people to stare at a dot as he flashed, HE·ART on a screen
(FIGURE 3 Thus, HE appeared in their left visual field (which transmits to the right hemisphere) and ART in the right
field (which transmits to the left hemisphere). When he then asked them to say what they had seen, the patients
reported that they had seen ART. But when asked to point to the word they had seen, they were alarmed when their
left hand (controlled by the right hemisphere) pointed to HE. Given an opportunity to express itself, each
hemisphere reported what it had seen. The right hemisphere (controlling the left hand) intuitively knew what it
could not verbally report.
 Sperry said (1964), split - brain surgery leaves people “with two separate minds.” With a split brain, both
hemispheres can comprehend and follow an instruction to copy—simultaneously— different figures with the left
and right hands

 Visual Information directed to each side of the brain comes from visual fields, not from each eye. The left eye
doesn’t send information to the right hemisphere and vice versa—the right halves of each eye send information to
the right hemisphere and vice versa.
 Left visual field → Right half of each eye → Right hemisphere
 Right visual field → Left half of each eye → Left hemisphere

Split Brain Surgery

Injury in the Left Hemisphere of the Brain.

Since the left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body, any injuries in it could lead to right sided
weakness. The following problems could arise:

o Difficulty understanding and expressing both written and spoken words.

o Difficulty in dealing with complex problems.
o Difficulties with numbers.
o Apraxia –the person finds it difficult to coordinate or program motor movements for speaking.
o Slurred speech or change in the sound of the voice (dysarthria).

Injury in the Right Hemisphere of the Brain.

The right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body. Any injuries on the right side of the brain could
result in left-sided weakness. The following problems could arise:

o The patient finds it challenging to focus on concentrate on a task.

o The patient can’t recall the previously learned information as well as difficulty in learning new information.
o The person fails to identify problems or even generate solutions.
o The person’s social communication skills are affected such as interpreting abstract language, understanding
jokes, making inferences, and understanding non-verbal cues.
o The left side of the body can’t attend to things.
o Difficulty in processing the information on the left visual field.
o Difficulty in recalling significant events such as the time, date, and place.
 o Difficulty in organizing things such as arranging information and planning.

Handedness

 90% of population is right-handed

 Righties: 96% process speech in left hemi’
 Lefties: 3/10 use right or both hemi’s
 Seem to be a tendency toward righthandedness from genetics

Biology of consciousness
Consciousness – our awareness of ourselves and our environment.

- Consciousness helps us act in our long-term interests (by considering consequences) rather than merely seeking
short-term pleasure and avoiding pain.
- Consciousness also promotes our survival by anticipating how we seem to others and helping us read their
minds:

 Evidence of Awareness
- When asked to imagine playing tennis or navigating through their home, a vegetative patient’s brain(top)
exhibited activity similar to a healthy person’s brain(bottom). Researchers wonder if such fMRI scans might
enable a conversation with some unresponsive patients, by instructing them, for example, to answer yes to a
question by imagining playing tennis and no by imagining walking around their home.

Cognitive neuroscience

- the study of how the brain enables the mind.

- the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie
cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes

 In general, afferent nerves carry sensory information to the CNS.