The Roots Of Consciousness: We're Of Two Minds
What would happen if your brain was split in two? In this week's Invisibilia podcast and show, host Hanna Rosin meets a woman named Karen with "alien hand syndrome."
After surgery to treat her epilepsy severed the connection between the two halves of her brain, Karen's left hand took on a mind of its own, acting against her will to undress or even to slap her. Amazing, to be sure. But what may be even more amazing is that most people who have split-brain surgery don't notice anything different at all.
But there's more to the story than that. In the 1960s, began a series of experiments with split-brain patients that would change our understanding of the human brain forever. Working in the lab of Roger Sperry, who later won a Nobel Prize for his work, Gazzaniga discovered that the two halves of the brain experience the world quite differently.
