If you cut your brain in half would that mean there were two of you

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XANA
Actually, kind of. Each hemisphere/half of your brain controls the opposite half of your body (ie: your right hemisphere is involved with control of your left limbs and vice versa), but need the corpus callosum (the fibers that connect both hemisphere halves of your brain like a bridge) to communicate with each other. If I showed your right hemisphere a picture of a cow, it recognizes that it's a cow, but cannot initiate the speech to say it is such.

If you cut the corpus callosum, you will find that your body will react separately in some situations because the halves can't communicate. This procedure is usually done to reducethe occurrence of seizures. If someone put a bunch of toys in front of you and asked you to pick your favorite...
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Actually, kind of. Each hemisphere/half of your brain controls the opposite half of your body (ie: your right hemisphere is involved with control of your left limbs and vice versa), but need the corpus callosum (the fibers that connect both hemisphere halves of your brain like a bridge) to communicate with each other. If I showed your right hemisphere a picture of a cow, it recognizes that it's a cow, but cannot initiate the speech to say it is such.

If you cut the corpus callosum, you will find that your body will react separately in some situations because the halves can't communicate. This procedure is usually done to reducethe occurrence of seizures. If someone put a bunch of toys in front of you and asked you to pick your favorite one, your left and right hands might disagree with each other (picking different toys) without you being consciously aware of doing so. Similarly, people with their corpus callosum cut are surprised when they pick out an outfit or food item, only for their other hand to push it aside and grab another one - again without the person consciously commanding the other hand to do so.
 
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Idaho Battle Barn said:
Actually, kind of. Each hemisphere/half of your brain controls the opposite half of your body (ie: your right hemisphere is involved with control of your left limbs and vice versa), but need the corpus callosum (the fibers that connect both hemisphere halves of your brain like a bridge) to communicate with each other. If I showed your right hemisphere a picture of a cow, it recognizes that it's a cow, but cannot initiate the speech to say it is such.

If you cut the corpus callosum, you will find that your body will react separately in some situations because the halves can't communicate. This procedure is usually done to reducethe occurrence of seizures. If someone put a bunch of toys in front of you and asked you to pick your favorite one, your left and right hands might disagree with each other (picking different toys) without you being consciously aware of doing so. Similarly, people with their corpus callosum cut are surprised when they pick out an outfit or food item, only for their other hand to push it aside and grab another one - again without the person consciously commanding the other hand to do so.
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Creepy, yet fascinating. Is this the brain misfiring, in some way? Or is there another, unknown train of thought at play?
 
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If you cut the lining between the hemispheres of the brain, you have two different minds. Only one half can talk, but they can get the other half to write and spell out things with blocks. Either side can hold different opinions and think different things.

This probably explains how people can be fucking morons and cognitively dissonate in their beliefs. You normally exist two brains and thinking working in tandum.
 
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The Corpus Callosum should not be severed as it leads to many issues, including some weird form of split personality, so sort of but not in the good way.
 
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Marcus Tullius Cicero said:
Creepy, yet fascinating. Is this the brain misfiring, in some way? Or is there another, unknown train of thought at play?
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CGP Grey did a short video that explores this topic a bit, but you can think of the left side being heavily involved in speech-related functions, whereas the right side is more involved in identifying and is considered mute for all intents and purposes. The mute vs. speaking aspects aren't usually a problem for normal people, since the brain can communicate between hemispheres with the corpus callosum. The left vs right side having different "opinions" and fighting with each other is mostly contained to people who have had their corpus callosum cut later in life.

Let's say that I sat you down at a table with a bunch of wood block numbers at the far off left side of the table, just at the edge of your peripheral vision so that your right eye cannot see the pile at all. Let's say that I now put a sign on your far left side with "7" on it and another sign on your far right side asking what number did I request. Remember, the brain is contralateral - left controls the right side of the body and vice versa. Your left hemisphere (right side) will say that I didn't ask for any number, but your right hemisphere (left side) will say "7" and even be able to pick the correct number by itself.

I probably should have mentioned hemispherectomy (removal of (a) brain hemisphere) in my earlier post. So we have two types of hemispherectomies: functional and anatomical. Both have been performed several hundred times over the last century.

Functional hemispherectomy means that you still have both brain hemispheres per se, but parts of one hemisphere in your brain have been surgically removed in addition to the corpus callosum being severed.

Anatomical hemispherectomy is the complete surgical removal of an entire brain hemisphere.

The brain isn't exactly as neatly segmented as diagrams show - the majority of the functions would be represented in that area in the diagram, but it's generally thought that there are other parts of the brain that are slightly involved in that specific function. This is theorized to be because the brain has some neuroplastic qualities to it and parts of the brain will take on some roles usually reserved for other parts.

For example, Broca's area (located within the frontal lobe in the left hemisphere) is considered the speech center of the brain. If I performed a left anatomical hemispherectomy, the person would still be able to talk to some degree (if you count babbling with intent as speech), but the earlier in a person's life the surgery is done, the better. A 6 month-old baby with a left anatomical hemispherectomy will be able to speak coherently later in life, but a 30 year-old who just had the same procedure done most likely wouldn't have that benefit. As a side note, the parts of the right hemisphere responsible for speech after an early-life anatomical hemispherectomy hasn't been discovered yet.
 
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Larkin N Likin said:

relevant video
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Hold up! How the fuck is his right hemisphere drawing so well (given that it's using his off-hand) when his eyes are closed?! That in and of itself is really strange. You try drawing a pan or a car with your eyes closed and see how close you get to getting to shape right enough to identify it as that object.

That's really fucking bizarre!
 
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