Quote:
Originally Posted by TrAI
Hmmm... I was reading that thing about the functional hemispherectomy thingy... Does that mean that in stead of totaly removing the parts of the brain they are simply cutting the neural connections between that part and the rest of the brain/nervous system, but leaves it connected to the bloodsupply?
If so, wouldn't that mean that that part now contains a copy of the person that is totaly cut of from the rest of the body?
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In functional hemispherectomy, there is a commissurotomy, severing direct communication between the two halves of the cerebrum, and also some removal of brain tissue from one side of the brain. So it's a halfway house between a split-brain procedure and a hemispherectomy.
A split-brain procedure separates the functions of consciousness, but doesn't cut either bit of brain off from the rest of the body: each half of the cortex has input and output to its own half of the body, together with considerable cross-over. The two sides of the cerebrum also maintain contact with each other through lower centres, as well as by observing what the other half is doing through the senses. So a person with a split brain behaves under most circumstances like an individual with a single consciousness. Experimenters have to use quite elaborate measures to "isolate" the two sides of the brain in order to demonstrate their different behaviours.
Grant Hutchison