Severed Corpus Callosum

This week’s main topic of interest was the severing of the corpus callosum, because I find it very interesting that we can damage the bridge to the brain’s hemispheres and live a normal life.

            The severing of the corpus callosum became famous for treating epilepsy, which are continuous episodes of extreme synchronized neural activity, the activity usually bounces back and forth from hemisphere to hemisphere, which keeps it going, therefore severing the corpus callosum keeps the excessive neural activity from damaging the other side of the brain, and it stops much quicker than it did before.

            People with a severed corpus callosum are referred to as split-brain people, these people don’t have many problems from the severing of the corpus callosum, which you think they would from damage to the brain. At first split-brain people might have trouble adjusting to their new life style, because their brain needs to get used to the lack of communication through its main source the corpus callosum, but that isn’t the only connection between the two hemispheres, there are very small ones along the two hemispheres that help out after the corpus callosum is severed, although not as powerful they are somewhat affective.

            Some of the problems that come with the severing of the corpus callosum is how the hemispheres perceive things. Our brain works in mysterious ways, the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body. Because of how the brain perceive things sometimes even if something is seen by the right hemisphere that would be on the left visual field, we can talk about it even though we might be able to point it out, and that is because the part of the brain that works with language is on the left hemisphere, while we might notice emotions a lot better on something we see in our opposite visual field, since the right hemisphere works with emotions. Here is a video of a man named Joe with a severed corpus callosum and how his brain works in different procedures.