Skip to main content

Consciousness After Complete Surgical Section of the Fore — Brain Commissures in Man

  • Chapter
Structure and Function of Cerebral Commissures
  • 20 Accesses

Abstract

For several years I have been concerned with a certain aspect of consciousness, i.e. the ability of self-reference by recognising self-attributions or photographs of oneself. In the following I shall present some results of attempts to test for this capacity in both hemispheres of ‘split-brain’ patients. In doing so, I shall include some observations made in preliminary tests with only one subject (NG), who has been described as one of the patients most representative of the disconnection syndrome (Sperry et al., 1969). I think that these observations illustrate the difficulties in testing commissurotomy patients, which in turn tells something about the hemisphere functions in these patients.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Bogen, J. E. and Vogel, P. J. (1975). Neurologic status in the long term following complete cerebral commissurotomy. In Les syndromes de disconnexion calleuse chez l’homme (F. Michel and B. Schott, eds.), Hôpital Neurologique, Lyon

    Google Scholar 

  • Gazzaniga, M. S. (1968). Short-term memory and brain-bisected man. Psychonomic Sci. 12, 161–2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gazzaniga, M. S. and Young, E. D. (1967). Effects of commissurotomy on the processing of increased visual information. Expl Brain Res., 3, 368–71

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gellermann, L. W. (1933). Chance orders of alternating stimuli in visual discrimi-nation experiments. J. genet. Psychol., 42, 206–208

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, J., Trevarthen, C. and Sperry, R. W. (1972). Perception of bilateral chimeric figures following hemispheric deconnection. Brain, 95, 61–78

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Preilowski, B. (1975a). Bilateral motor interaction: perceptual-motor perfor-mance of partial and complete ‘split-brain’ patients. In Cerebral Localization, (K. J. Zülch, O. Creutzfeldt and G. C. Galbraith, eds.), Springer, Berlin

    Google Scholar 

  • Preilowski, B. (1975b). Facial self-recognition after separate right and left hemisphere stimulation in two patients with complete cerebral commissurotomy. Expl Brain Res., 23 (suppl.), 165

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperry, R. W. (1952). Neurology and the mind-brain problem. Am. Scient., 40, 291–312

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperry, R. W. (1966). Brain bisection and mechanisms of consciousness. In Brain and Conscious Experience (J. C. Eccles, ed.), Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Sperry, R. W. (1968). Hemisphere deconnection and unity in conscious aware-ness. Am. Psychol., 23, 723–33

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sperry, R. W. (1969). A modified concept of consciousness. Psychol. Rev., 76, 532–36

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sperry, R. W. (1970). An objective approach to subjective experience: further explanation of a hypothesis. Psychol. Rev., 77, 585–90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sperry, R. W. (1976). Changing concepts of consciousness and free will. Pers. Biol. Med., 20, 9–19.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sperry, R. W., Gazzaniga, M. S. and Bogen, J. E. (1969). Interhemispheric relationships: the neocortical commissures; syndromes of hemisphere disconnection. In Handbook of Clinical Neurology, vol. IV (P. J. Vinken and G. W. Bruyn, eds.), North-Holland, Amsterdam

    Google Scholar 

  • Strong, P. (1970). Biophysical Measurements, Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Oregon

    Google Scholar 

  • Trevarthen, C. (1974). Analysis of cerebral activities that generate and regulate consciousness in commissurotomy patients. In Hemisphere Function in the Human Brain, (S. J. Dimond and J. G. Beaumont, eds.), Elek, London

    Google Scholar 

  • Zaidel, E. (1973). Linguistic competence and related functions in the right cerebral hemisphere of man following commissurotomy and hemispherectomy. Unpubl. doct. dissert., California Institute of Technology

    Google Scholar 

  • Zaidel, E. (1975). A technique for presenting lateralized visual input with prolonged exposure. Vision Res., 15, 283–89

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 1979 I. Steele Russell, M. W. van Hof and G. Berlucchi

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Preilowski, B. (1979). Consciousness After Complete Surgical Section of the Fore — Brain Commissures in Man. In: Russell, I.S., van Hof, M.W., Berlucchi, G. (eds) Structure and Function of Cerebral Commissures. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03645-5_34

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics