Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Split-Brain People

There are many advantages for cutting the corpus callosum in people who suffer from epileptic seizures, including isolating the seizures to the originating hemisphere but also the frequency of the seizures decreases. Of course using this method is essentially a last ditch effort when the foci are too abundant and cannot be removed. 

An interesting thing can be observed in the patient after the surgery, for instance while shopping the right hand will place items in the cart while the left hand puts the item back. Essentially what happens is the two brain hemispheres act independently of each other and are essentially two separate people. If you look at the video below you will see the neurologist VS Ramachandran explain how he observed, after training the subject to communicate with each hemisphere of his brain, that one hemisphere of the brain was a believer of God while the other hemisphere was not a believer. 


Of course it has been shown that now hemisphere is truly the creative side and one the logical side, but this does raise interesting questions about that topic. Is divine creation logically possible or is there a component that requires one to be creatively inclined to believe in a higher power?

I personally feel that if one thinks about religion logically then the evidence against divine creation will outshine the evidence for it. But I am always more than happy to hear what others think and or feel.  

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed the video you provided. Split brains are quite interesting. When i was reading into it i also looked at some videos online and found some interesting case scenarios where individuals with split brains were at baseball games and cheering for both teams. I thought it was quite interesting because each side of the body was dressed to cheer for the team each hemisphere supported or preferred. One individual even said he enjoyed it because regardless at the end of the game he team would win because well he essential is going for BOTH teams playing.

    As a Christian the idea that one hemisphere is Atheist and one a believer in a higher being is interesting. Since the left hemisphere tends to overpower the right does the person go where the left believes? I don't know. This isn't something that can actually be studied because it brings a lot of questions.

    Thinking about that scenario I would love to further read into it. Can someone enjoy the company of someone yet also despise them? What are the effects of conflicts between hemispheres? Or Does the left hemisphere overpower the right and tells it to "shut up"?

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  2. I love this topic it is so interesting to me and kind of reminds me of something that would only happen in a movie instead of real life. Actually, the movie this reminds me of is Idle Hands, if you've ever seen it, it talks about this character whose right hand becomes possessed and is trying to kill everyone. It's quite funny and until my freshman year in college, when I started learning about split-brain patients, completely made up. It's so fascinating how that would happen that one side of the brain is atheist and the other a believer in God. It kind of makes me wonder, how Yaritza said, if someone can love someone yet despise them as well. So interesting and definitely something I will look into.

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