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Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
11–20 of 113 posts
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#12My knowledge of neurobiology is weak. Having received a full callosotomy, how are the hemispheres able to communicate even at 1 bit / s? Secondly, how is that estimate generated?
As I understand it, they have most of the other pathways in the entire nervous system to communicate through.
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#13Next question: is it possible to split consciousness at all?
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#14How does a brain split operation work exactly? Do they put a barrier between the two halves? Otherwise, I would expect that signals could still propagate: cut two nerves, then push them together, and I can imagine that a signal can still pass through; if not always, then in a percentage of cases.
This is an interesting question. I'm not a neuroscientist or anything, but I'd wonder how this question relates with brain waves, as well. I guess there's research into how these signals cause integration within the brain http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v2/n4/full/nrn0401_229a.ht... - I guess I'll check back here in a couple hours and hope somebody's chimed in.
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#15Last year I watched Dr. Gazzaniga's 2009 Scotland lecture series on Youtube. I noticed an inconsistency that bothered me enough to email him, but never got a reply.
In his third Edinburgh video lecture[1], he shows two videos featuring patient J.W.
In the second video, the test flashes RED and BANANA to his left and right hemispheres, respectively, and J.W. is asked to draw what he sees. He then proceeds to pick up the red pen with his left hand. But, the hand's controlling hemisphere only saw BANANA. How did it decide to pick up the red pen?
Similarly, in the first video, the words MUSIC (L) and BELL (R) are flashed. He's asked to point to a picture of what he saw and he uses his right hand to point to BELL, but its controlling hemisphere only saw MUSIC.
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#16I thought this was an Jepsen-style article on some distributed systems at first.
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#17Interestingly this work contradicts not just previous theory, but also previous experimental result. I would be interested to see if they have a critique for why the previous runs of the experiment provided a different experimental result.
They discuss a few possibilities. The first is cross-cueing, which they describe as " ... behavioural tricks, such as touching the left hand with the right hand" [1]. However, they also discuss a number of reasons why they think cross-cueing did not play a role. The second (and imho quite interesting) explanation is that the split-brain phenomenon could be transient: their subjects have had between 10 and 20 years to recover since their callosectomy. It may be that the brain learns to use other pathways to communicate inter-hemispherically.
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#18Interestingly this work contradicts not just previous theory, but also previous experimental result. I would be interested to see if they have a critique for why the previous runs of the experiment provided a different experimental result.
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Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#19I'm not sure that this proves that there's a single consciousness. There may be a second consciousness that is receiving some information about observations from the other hemisphere.
Re: Split Brain Does Not Lead to Split Consciousness
#20Last year I watched Dr. Gazzaniga's 2009 Scotland lecture series on Youtube. I noticed an inconsistency that bothered me enough to email him, but never got a reply. In his third Edinburgh video lecture[1], he shows two videos featuring patient J.W. In the second video, the test flashes RED and BANANA to his left and right hemispheres, respectively, and J.W. is asked to draw what he sees. He then proceeds to pick up t…
Even the earliest teats showed there was still some communication between the two halves,the tactile test from the original paper showed that the subject could not describe an object that only the left hand could feel, but they could point it out.