The Split Brain Theory

“Never one person or groups of people exclusively used more of their left side of the brain or more of the right side” was concluded by Dr. Gayatri Devi, the professor of neurology at New York (“Left brain right brain theory”). This is a reference to the myth that people think they are more dominant on their left side of their brain and vice versa. The split-brain theory, better known as the left-brain, right-brain theory, is a theory that distinguishes people as “left brained” or “right brained”, which had originated when neurological patients’ left side and right side of their brain was surgically disconnected. This became more significant in the 1960’s and 1970’s when neuropsychologist Roger W. Sperry conducted 16 split-brain operations …show more content…
The lead professor of neuroradiology, Jeff Anderson and his team of neuroscientists put this theory to the test in 2013 (Novotney, Shmerling). The study consisted of over 1,000 brain scans of people between the ages seven and 29 (Shmerling). This study took the scans of kids while they were either lying down or reading. The reasoning behind that was the left side of the brain takes action when one is reading (Blacker, “Left brain” 8). When the scans came back, the scientists at Utah split the scans into over 7,000 regions, which showed absolutely no evidence of sidedness. Along with no evidence of sidedness, the students at the University of Utah found that there was no evidence of residence in one area of the brain. The scans showed that each side of the brain, the left and the right, had the same brain activity on either side, giving the proof that there was no evidence to back up the left-brain, right-brain theory (Shmerling, “Left brain, right brain theory”). The scans also showed that no one individual had a stronger left side or right-side network. If any computerized tomography scan, magnetic resonance imaging, or any autopsy information were to come from either a mathematician or an artist and the two were to be compared, the scans would show that the brain activities are the exact same on the left side and the right side of the brain (Shmerling, …show more content…
Certain brain functions may be lateralized, meaning that some functions are controlled more dominantly on one side rather than the other (Blacker). Once tested on split-brain patients, the lateralization tends to fade away. For instance, if a split-brain patient were to stare at a dot on a screen and a picture of a spoon were to flash across the screen to the right side of the dot, the patient has no problem identifying that the picture is a spoon. On the other hand, if the spoon were to cross the screen on the left side of the dot, the patient would not have known that the picture of the spoon had appeared (“One Brain”). This experiment provides the truth on both sides of the brain working together. While the right side of the brain can distinguish the picture of the spoon, the left side cannot due to no corpus callosum in the split-brain patient. This information concludes that there is no proof of a dominant side of the brain due to the fact that the brain has to work together in order to identify any single objects that are to be