4/2/2023 0 Comments Face portraits![]() That sounds spooky, but some evidence suggests yes. Neuroscientists have long debated whether certain people have two independent minds running in parallel inside their skulls. In the course of its evolution the left brain also took on the crucial role of master interpreter. This process accelerated in human beings, and we humans show far greater left/right differences than any other animal. So the brain eliminated the redundancy, and the left brain took on new tasks. ![]() But there’s no good reason for both hemispheres to do the same basic job, not if the corpus callosum-a huge bundle of fibers that connects the left and right brain-can transmit data between them. Before this time, the left brain and right brain probably monitored sensory data and recorded details about the world to an equal degree. Scientists suspect that left-right specialization first evolved many millions of years ago, since many other animals show subtle hemispheric differences: they prefer to use one claw or paw to eat, for instance, or they strike at prey more often in one direction than another. But the left and right hemispheres of the human brain do show striking differences in some areas, especially with regard to language, the trait that best defines us as human beings. It is possible to take the idea of left/right differences within the brain too far: it’s not like one side of the brain talks or emotes or recognizes faces all by itself while the other one just sits there twiddling its neurons. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Co. ![]() Excerpted from The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness and Recovery, by Sam Kean.
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