All your great questions today intrigued me, so I wanted to write and share some resources that will hopefully add more to my (limited) answers:
Do you notice that when you try to think of something, your eyes move either to the left or to the right? Here's a site with instructions on how to do a mini-experiment with someone to observe this in action.
Other sites:
Handedness and brain lateralization
Becoming ambidexterous(?) - this discussion forum reminded me of a lot of comments/experiences shared in class today -- Christopher and air rifle shooting, Philip and pool playing, Nicolette and batting righty, and Minerva talking about her dad (was that right?)doing different things with his left vs. right hand.
But actually there are two different terms, and we generally conflate the two:
1. Cross-dominance (or mixed-handedness) -- a term not really used -- but this term is more accurate for what we talked about today. We have preferences for using each hand for certain tasks, like Noah mentioned opening jars with his left hand though he's right-handed.
2. Ambidexterity -- having equal ability for both hands, which is rare!
Badminton players - another discussion forum that talks about playing left-handed or playing against left-handers (also a challenge in tennis -- I've never played against any left-handers though)
Gazzaniga review article on split-brain research - the author was the researcher in the last video we watched in class.
Here's another example of two split-brain patients and their behaviors (written report, not video -- but there are more videos on YouTube that you can check out.)
And I did find a video clip of the two-headed turtle that I told you about!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I wanted to mention some things about the split brain study in class today, but the discussion took a turn. It seemed that a couple of crucial points might not have been clear to some:
1. It is not that motor and sensory functions are lateralized to one hemisphere - these functions are localized to specific parts of the cortex that are in BOTH hemishpheres. These functions are contralateral (i.e the motor cortex in the right hemishphere controls the left side of the body and so on).
2. The results shown in the video do not reflect the daily functioning of a split brain patient. In a realistic setting, for example, these people have time to view things with both eyes, so that they can provide information to both sides of the brain. This type of feedback prevents most of the interesting behaviors we saw from showing through.
Also, Someone asked about motor function in split brain patients - I think (although I am not certain) these functions are not significantly changed in these patients because of this type of feedback. For example, they can see their own actions and the two hemispheres can thus work together.
thats really weird that its two sides move independently but unfortunate
thats really weird that its two sides move independently but unfortunate
Post a Comment