Who was Roger Wolcott Sperry?
Q: Who was Roger Wolcott Sperry?
A: Roger Wolcott Sperry was an American neurobiologist and Nobel Prize winner.
Q: What did the research evidence indicate before Sperry's experiments?
A: Before Sperry's experiments, some research evidence seemed to indicate that areas of the cerebral cortex were largely interchangeable.
Q: What did Sperry show in his early experiments?
A: In his early experiments, Sperry showed that after early development, circuits of the brain are largely hardwired. That is, they are set with a particular function.
Q: What type of surgery was developed by William Van Wagenen in 1940?
A: The surgery developed by William Van Wagenen in 1940 was designed to treat epileptics with grand mal seizures and severed (cut) the corpus callosum, the area of the brain used to transfer signals between the right and left hemispheres.
Q: How did Sperry demonstrate that each hemisphere may contain consciousness?
A: To demonstrate that each hemisphere may contain consciousness, Sperry tested ten patients who had undergone this operation with tasks that were known to be dependent on specific hemispheres of the brain.
Q: What activities can only be done when using one side of the brain or another?
A: Some activities such as naming objects or putting blocks together in a particular way can only be done when using one side of the brain or another. It seems the left hemisphere usually specializes in language processes and the right is dominant in visual-construction tasks.
