Who's in Control?

Science has long been baffled by the complex functions of the brain. Research in the last fifety years has unravled many of these complex functions. One area of research in particular has shed new light on how these functions work together. Dr. Gazzaniga (a pioneer in the field of neuroresearch) has been conducting experiments on how the left and right brain work together - his findings have been quite interesting. Dr. Gazzaniga is testing patients who have undergone split brain surgery. (This is a procedure done for patients who suffer from siezures where the left brain is disconnected from the right - the patients show no obvious complications from this procedure). He showed each patient two different picutures, a chicken claw and snow scene. He made it so that the left brain could see the chicken and the right brain could see the snow. When the patient was asked to associate what he saw from a list a pictures, he picked out a chicken and a shovel. This seemed like a pretty normal response, but when Dr. Gazzaniga asked the patient why he pick those, his answer was very interesting. The patient responed by saying that he chose the the chicken to go with the claw and the shovel to clean the chicken coup. This goes to show that the left hemisphere takes the information it gathers and forms a "narrative." Dr. Gazzaniga using this idea of our brain "narrating" our actions to inform law makers on how advances in neuroscince should affect policy going forward.

Pictures: Brain Hemispheres (L), Dr. Gazzaniga (R)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/science/telling-the-story-of-the-brains-cacophony-of-competing-voices.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&ref=science