Busted – Myths About The Human Brain
Explaining away our personality quirks by referring to the myth of left or right-brained dominance has become increasingly convenient. However, this myth has been busted – we now have neuroscientists who have come forward to set things straight.
Several online personality quizzes claim that they can tell you if the left or right part of the brain dominates through an analysis of your preference for certain kinds of paintings or the ability to recall names and the faces of others. The quizzes say that those in whom the left part of the brain dominates excel in math and languages. On the other hand, those with a dominant right part are emotionally more intelligent, imaginative, and are proficient in spatial reasoning. However, there’s a major problem—your brain works differently.
It’s Only a Myth!
Neuroradiologist, Jeff Anderson observes that this idea caught on in popular science as well and it has become deeply rooted in popular culture. It doesn’t seem likely that it’ll go away. However, it certainly isn’t true. You can be sure that Anderson would know as he was a senior author of a study carried out in 2013 by the University of Utah that analyzed brain activity covering several hemispheres using MRI.
There’s no such thing as a person being “left-brained” or “right-brained” even though an enduring belief says that there is. Whether you are more inclined towards creativity or logic doesn’t at all relate to a certain hemisphere of your brain dominating over the other. However, it’s stranger than fiction how your brain’s two halves work together.
Specialized Brain Regions For Different Functions
The human brain has two hemispheres—the left and the right. The right hemisphere of the brain controls the body’s left side and vice versa in all vertebrates. Thanks to the behavior displayed by those who suffered injuries to their brains, scientists have known for a very long time that different parts of the brain perform different functions.
For example, several neurologists of the 19th century noticed the left frontal lobes of several patients with speech disorders having lesions. The brain’s language center, the Broca’s area was named after the most famous scientist who documented this connection.
The Challenge for Paul Broca
Paul Broca had to struggle with what he had discovered. Peggy Mason, a University of Chicago neuroscientist observes that Broca’s finding went against the commonly held idea that nature is inclined towards having perfect symmetry. It’s largely because of the path-breaking findings of Paul Broca that today, we know how the left hemisphere is primarily responsible for how we learn and reproduce language even though it doesn’t work alone. It’s only a simple fact today.
A dense highway of nerves that runs down the brain’s middle joins the two hemispheres of the brain together. It’s this highway, the corpus callosum that enables the communication between the brain’s two halves. The early and the mid 20th century saw some physicians trying to control seizures in patients with severe epilepsy by severing the corpus callosum to disrupt the transfer of electric pulses between hemispheres. The procedure still practiced sometimes does help control seizures and in the process, it has revealed many unknown facts about how the brain’s two halves work together.
Experiments at the California Institute of Technology
Back in the 1960s, Roger Sperry, neuropsychologist and doctoral student Mike Gazzaniga at the California Institute of Technology conducted a study while working with four patients with the so-called “split-brain” condition – a result of the surgery. The way the patients processed the world showed subtle but surprising differences.
One experiment required patients to identify a spoon by holding it in their right hands without looking. Since the right hand was controlled by the brain’s left hemisphere, which is the area of language processing as, revealed by Broca’s findings, the patients faced no problems in identifying the spoon. However, they failed to identify a pencil when they held it with their left hands controlled by the right side of the brain. Again, the patients fared better when asked to reproduce paintings with their left hand, which is an indication of the right brain being important for spatial reasoning.
Gazzaniga, the present director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California observes that having a focal lesion in either of the brain’s two hemispheres causes deficits in those domains—the right or the left. Gazzaniga goes on to say that what was shocking to note was the complete disconnect between the two halves—a startling breakthrough.
The Final Revelation
Sperry and Gazzaniga’s work shed light on how the two hemispheres of the brain are important in carrying out different activities. It also showed what role the corpus callosum plays in transferring information between hemispheres. Their research also debunked certain misconceptions held by the people. There was a belief that while right-brained people are creative, those who are left-brained are logical. Such a theory as Gazzaniga says is simply a myth.
Researchers like Anderson have revealed that human personality has nothing to do with different halves in the brain. To begin with, there are no right or left-brained people. Therefore, the idea that there are left and right dominant people and that such a trait is connected to human personality is “categorically false.” Neuroscientists have never believed in that.
Conclusion
Sperry and Gazzaniga’s experiments prove beyond doubt that the two halves of the brain work in tandem and that there are no left-brained or right-brained people. Therefore, the common belief that creative people are right-brained while logical people are left-brained is no more than a myth. With the two halves of the brain working together, there’s also no reason to believe that a person is left or right dominated in his brain affects the kind of personality he has. The studies, therefore, have shown us that while there are indeed important differences between the two hemispheres of the brain, they have no bearing on human personality.
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