by
JOSEPH E. BOGEN, M.D.
Presented in part as the outgoing Presidential Address to the
Los Angeles Society of Neurology and Psychiatry on 19 January 1983.
Portions of this essay have appeared in the following: Benson DF and
Zaidel E, eds. The Dual Brain, Guilford, NY, 1985. Also, Lepore F,
Ptito M, Jasper HH, eds. Two Hemispheres, One Brain? Alan Liss, NY,
1986; and Trevarthen C, ed. Brain Circuits and Functions of Mind
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. I am indebted for advice, much of it heeded, from M. Adelson, G. M.
Bogen, R. W Doty, D. Galin, C. Hamilton, J. Johnstone, F. Michel,
M.ODell, C. Trevarthen, A. van Harreveld. A. Vaughan, R.
Zachariasen, and E. Zaidel. Thanks are due for word processing to Sally
Johnstone and for library assistance from S. Zeind, Chief Librarian of the
Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. This paper is a followup to my articles called "The Other Side of
the Brain" which were published in the Bulletin of the LA Neurol. Soc. in
1969 (24). Those articles presented ideas some of which may now seem
fairly orthodox. But in those days they were not, and I think that for
Dr. Richard Walter , then editor of the Bulletin to publish them was a
tribute to his wry sense of humor, as well as his historical
perspective. I shall now present evidence accumulated since 1969 that the onebrain
view is inadequate to describe not only the "split-brain" but
also the anatomically intact encephalon. I shall consider in some detail
the possibility of retaining both the single brain and double brain views,
as an example of complementarity, a philosophical concept adopted by some
quantum physicists. Hence, a few philosophical ideas implicit in the
remainder of the paper should be mentioned. Does an individual having two cerebral hemispheres have, in some
important sense, two brains rather than only one? This "important sense"
deserves to be made more explicit at the outset. It includes, I believe,
the following: that whatever may be for neurologists the meaning of the
psychological term "mind," the number of brains in an individual is the
same as the number of minds. If this equivalence of numerosity were not
agreed upon, we might well spend the rest of our time arguing that
question as well as others, such as: What meanings are possible for the
word "mind"? Without demeaning such perennial questions, I will take it
for granted, at least for this paper, that what we can learn about mind
also tells us about brain and vice versa. In other words, the mentalistic
and physiologic are two different descriptions of the same underlying
reality. When discussing the duality versus singularity of brain, or in shifting
back and forth between mentalistic and physiologic vocabularies, we are
not concerned with a quite different issue, one which is often couched in
misleadingly similar terms. That is, we are not here concerned with the
metaphysical issue of dualism vs monism, whether the monism be
materialistic or idealistic. Whether one professes (as have so many
Eastern philosophers and some contemporary quantum physicists) (68) that
mind begets brain, or whether one supposes [along with Sir Charles
Sherrington, (9)] that mind coexists with and interacts with brain, or
whether one supposes (as I believe) that mind is generated by brain, need
not concern us here. Our metaphysical views neither entail nor are they
entailed by our views on the question at hand. This is because one could
easily be on either side of the dualism /monism issue irrespective of
one's position on the question of duality or singularity of mind. How is it that this question (duality versus singularity of brain) has
come so forcefully to our attention in the past few years? The view that the brain should be considered not as a single organ but
rather as a pair of organs, in much the same sense that each of us has a
pair of kidneys or a pair of lungs, is at least as old as the writings of
Hippocrates. In his words, ". . . the human brain, as in the case of all
other animals, is double" (10). This view was urged with utmost
conviction by Arthur Ladbroke Wigan, an English physician who published
his book, The Duality of the Mind, in 1844. Among the many
other similar sentiments in this book, he claimed that, "the mind is
essentially dual like the organs by which it is exercised." He believed
himself able to prove, "that a separate and distinct process of thinking
or ratiocination may be carried on in each cerebrum simultaneously" (11).
Today we call this the concept of cerebral duality or hemispheric
independence; it is important to understand that this proposition is not
dependent upon the existence of hemispheric specialization; it is true of
cats, monkeys, etc., as well as humans. The view of the brain as double was also advanced by others, notably
including Brown-Sequard, David Ferrier, and Sir Victor Horsley (3). John
Hughlings Jackson, in his essay entitied "On the Nature of the Duality of
the Brain," wrote as follows: "That the nervous system is double physically is evident enough.
This is a very striking fact, but one so well known that we are in danger
of ceasing to think of its significance or of ceasing to wonder at it. The nervous system, I repeat. is physically double. I wish to show that
it is double in function also, and further, in what way it is double in
function" (12). Although such views were quite popular in the late 19th century (13)
the view that the brain is double was in abeyance for nearly half a
century. It has only recently been revived in the light of the splitbrain
results, both animal and human (1416). That this view remained in eclipse
for so long was probably of multiple causation, but I would suggest that
perhaps the strongest of these causes has its origin not in objective
science but in subjective intuition-the inner conviction of wholeness, or
unity, of singleness felt by each of us.(Itis sometimes acclaimed as
"the unity of consciousness"). According to Rene Descartes: ". . . there is a great difference between the mind and the body,
in that the body is, by its nature, always divisible, and the mind wholly
indivisible. For, in fact, when I contemplate it-that is, when I
contemplate my own self-and consider myself as a thing that thinks,
I cannot discover in myself any parts, but I clearly know that I am a
thing absolutely one and complete"(17). The same conviction was elegantly expressed by Sir Charles Sherrington
when he wrote: "This self is a unity . . . it regards itself as one, others treat
it as one. It is addressed as one, by a name to which it answers. The Law
and the State schedule it as one. It and they identify it with a body
which is considered by it and them to belong to it integrally. In short,
unchallenged and unargued conviction assumes it to be one. The logic of
grammar endorses this by a pronoun in the singu.lar. All its diversity is
merged in oneness." (9). However correct or erroneous it may be, it is this conviction which
offers the greatest resistance to the twobrain view, even now that the
splitbrain results are so widely appreciated (18, 19). One can still see
in current print, for example, such sentiments as "the brain is a unity"
or "all parts of the brain participate in all of its actions" or [and this
may be the most familiar form] "the brain works as a whole." This is not a
description of an observable fact; it is the sloganof a particular
philosophic conviction. [There is a sense in which it might be considered
consistent with the evidence. That is, we could say that the cerebrum
works as a whole in the sense that every brain cell has a certain
probability of contributing significantly to any specified function or bit
of behaviour . In this way it could be said that a neuron in the right
temporal pole (of a right hander) has a certain probability of being
necessary for speech (but a probability vanishing small!). The subjective evidence, that is to say introspection, recurrently
reminds each of us that "mind is single.'' But the objective, experimental
evidence increasingly tells us that the intact brain is double. This
objective evidence is the main content of this paper. This paper offers a thesis which can be outlined in three
sentences. The first is, "One cerebral hemisphere is
enough for a mind": the best evidence for that comes from
hemispherectomy. The second statement is, "with two hemispheres it is possible to
have two minds." The best evidence, or at least the most striking (there
is quite a lot of other evidence) is from the human splitbrain, where the
two minds appear to be so different. The third assertion is that this duality of mind can be
present in the intact cerebrum (5, 20). I will present some of the
evidence and some of the arguments for these three statements-mainly for
the third statement because the first two are by now fairly well
accepted. It was about 1820 when Arthur Ladbroke Wigan lost an acquaintance from
a relatively sudden death (possibly a heart attack). At the postmortem,
when the head was opened, he and the others present were astonished to see
that one hemisphere was completely missing. He was not only astonished,
but he recognized that this was meaningful, so he looked around for other
cases and he found a few. In his book The Duality of the Mind
published over 20 years later, he took it as unarguable that one
hemisphere is enough for a mind (11). There have been naturally occurring resorptions of a single hemisphere observed since,
but the best evidence, because it is so readily replicable is from
hemispherectomy. The evidence comes first of all in animals. I won't
cite all of the experimental observations, having reviewed most of them
previously (21); but I would like to point out what Wenzel, Tschirgi, and
Taylor said about their experience with hemispherectomized kittens. In
spite of removal of nearly onehalf ofthe brain, "the behavioral loss is
extremely small, or even undetectable" (22).
Perhaps even more impressive than their informal behavioral
descriptions are the formal, quantitative investigations by physiological
psychologists. There have been many such studies. One that is especially
notable, because of the many years it continued, is the research of Kruper , Koskoff and Patton (23). Patton observed in
1961 that the hemicerebrectomized monkey can achieve a level of
performance on a complex learning taskwhich equals that of the normal
animal, although it may take a little longer. Ten years later, these
authors wrote, ". . . showing clear learning defcits when comparing the performance of
these animals to the performance of normal monkeys continues to be a
compelling challenge" (23). The quality of mind which the residual hemisphere affords depends on
the integrity of the residual hemisphere that is, what and and how much
damage it has had. If "mind" includes (at least) the abilities to
perceive, discriminate, compare with previously stored information,
consider alternative actions, choose among them, and then to act, it is
doubtful that any smaller subdivision of a mammalian brain can support a
mind. That is, although these minimal criteria for "mind" do not
distinguish what a hemisphere can do from what the best electronic
artifacts can do, it does eliminate any favorite gyrus, cerebral lobe, or
cord segment from consideration as the seat of a "mind." By contrast, one
hemisphere properly connected can support a mind, by these or any other
familiar criteria. Not only neuroscientists but many laymen are by now
familiar with these facts. For example, C. E. Marks (a philosopher at the
University of Washington in Seattle) wrote that no one today doubts
Wigan's original point that one hemisphere is enough for a mind
"comfortably characterizable as human" (24). If one hemisphere can be enough for a mind, can two hemispheres
be enough for two minds? When they are in separate heads, the answer is
clearly "yes." Two people, each with a hemispherectomy, have two
minds. But what if the two hemispheres are in the same head? Most readers
already have some familiarity with the splitbrain phenomena. It requires
emphasis that the concept of duality of mind is not based only on the
humans who have had a splitbrain operation. The human cases may be more
dramatic, but the duality of mind when the brain is split was established
before there were any human cases, in hundreds of experiments by dozens of
investigators, in the cat and monkey (25). Of course, the human cases
attracted more attention, Of the human cases ,this is what Roger Sperry
said in 1974: "Although some authorities have been reluctant to credit the
disconnected minor hemisphere even with being conscious, it is our own
interpretationóbased on a large number and variety of nonverbal
testsóthat the other hemisphere is indeed a conscious system in its
own rightóperceiving, thinking, remembering, reasoning, willing,
and emotingóall at a characteristically human level, and that both
the left and right hemisphere may be conscious simultaneously in
different. even mutually conflicting. mental experiences that run along in
parallel "(15). We come now to the third point. What about two hemispheres inside one
head when the two hemispheres are not anatomically disconnected? To what extent does the "duality of mind,'' easily demonstrable in the
splitbrain, also obtain in the normal individual? This is a principal
question affecting most of the inferences, regarding human nature, from
the splitbrain data. Indeed, hemispheric specialization would be of little
more interest than the many other differences in cortical representation
of function, if it were not for its concurrence with a significant degree
of hemispheric independence. To have any duality of mind, hemispherically based, there must be some
circumstances in which memory traces are unihemispheric and are not
communicated to the other hemisphere, even with commissures intact. This
was considered by Doty et al. in their article on "The Unilateral Engram,"
in which they went so far as to suggest that the corpus callosum may
actually act to restrict memory storage to one or the other hemisphere
(26). I shall not take so strong a position here, being content only to
claim that the neocommissures cannot affect a complete unification of
information processing in the two hemispheres. There are two aspects to my claim: first, that without the
neocommissures there are nevertheless many effectively unifying
mechanisms, and second, that even with these plus the neocommissures.
unification is incomplete, resulting in mental duality, hemispherically
based. We consider first some of the extracallosal sources of
unification. That there must be some synchronization (with or without the
commissures) is clear enough. Unlike two hemispheres in two different
heads, the disconnected hemispheres have been and continue to be in the
same place at the same time, have the same circulating environment (blood
and CSF), and they communicate a great deal subcallosally. This
subcallosal sharing includes their possession in common of the "second"
(midbrain dependent) visual system (29, 30). Brain stem connections make
for unification in other ways. For example, the duality of cognition
demonstrable in the human splitbrain seems not to be accompanied by so great a disparity of affect (31, 32), perhaps because the two limbic
systems are so tightly coupled at the hypothalamic level. An important source of synchronization is the brain stem activating
system, particularly since generalized arousal via this system can be
produced by descending corticofugal influences from one hemisphere (33).
Both human hemispheres, whether in the intact or the split condition, are
probably asleep and awake simultaneously, just as they are in the
splitbrain cat (34, 35) unless there is a sagittal section of the brain
stem (36, 37). There is no evidence that primate hemispheres (in the
same head) can alternate sleep and waking, as do cetacean hemispheres
(384]). lf it were the case that the two hemispheres in normal continuity were
some times independently awake and asleep, that is, if wakefulness varied
independently, then cognition could also vary independently. In the
dolphin (whose hemispheres are well connected by a large corpus callosum)
this appears to be the case. If the dolphin hemispheres can sometimes be
alternately awake (hence independently cognizing when anatomically intact,
it suggests widely varying degrees of
the synchronizing capacity not only of the brain stem but also of the corpus callosum. Before reviewing some of the evidence for partial hemispheric
independence in mammals other than cetaceans, we should first consider
some other reasons why hemispheric independence is incomplete in the
splitbrain. The unifying function of the corpus callosum has been unduly
emphasized, not only when it is intact (the gist of this paper) but it has
also been overemphasized also when no longer present.. As noted above,
there is a lot ofsubcortical commumcation via the brain stem whether or
not the neocommissures are cut. And the cerebellar commissures, less often
considered in this context may well contribute, especially in the absence
of the (probably) overriding callosal transmission. Moreover, if one
hemisphere initiates motion, the other hemisphere receives considerable proprioceptive feedback. Since the
hemispheres share a common blood supply, if one hemisphere causes the
secretion of some hormones, the hormones can reach the other hemisphere..
This is a means of communication which, although it is less rapid than
neuronal communication, is important for mental states. The spinal fluid,
of course, is also shared by the two hemispheres and this may be even more important than their common
vasculature, a point progressively more important as the number of known
cerebral peptides continues to increase. Another noncallosal means of interhemispheric communication is
crosscueing. "Crosscueing" means that one hemisphere initiates a bodily
behavior which can provide information to the other hemisphere. One
method is "verbal crosscueing": when the left hemisphere names out loud an
object being felt in the right hand, this often is followed by correct
retrieval by the left hand of that test object. This is in contrast to the
customary failure of crossretrieval when the splitbrain human attempts the
same task while remaining silent. More intriguing than verbal crosscueing
by the left hemisphere of the right is the reverse, nonverbal crosscueing
by the right. Nonverbal crosscueing by the right hemisphere takes various
forms, as described next. Systematic investigation of nonverbal crosscueing is as yet scanty. But
nonverbal crosscueing has been observed by many people on numerous
occasions.. As will be readily apparent. any of these "tricks" of
crosscueing could be employed by the normal as well as by the
commissurotomized individual. 4.1. L.B. was tested 2 1/2 years after surgery. During the course of
the examination, several objects were placed in his left hand while he was
blindfolded, and he was unable to name them. When a paper clip was placed in his left hand he was completely at a
loss. He then reached over to put it into his right hand and immediately
and correctly named it.
(Here, transfer from left to right hand made suffcient information
available to the speaking left hemisphere.) When a pipe was placed in his left hand the pipe was turned around and
manipulated in various ways and ended up in a correct position. The pipe
was then put up to (but not into) his mouth and he then said, "Oh, that's
a cigarette." He then was told to feel it with his right hand and
immediately after doing so he said, "No, that's a pipe." When a pair of glasses was put into his left hand, the hand turned it
about and then opened the bows and started to put it on his head at which
point his arm was stopped and he was asked to try to name it without
trying to do anything further. He was unable to name it. He then flipped the bows closed which
made an audible click. He then quickly said, "Are those your glasses?"
(Here, the movement by his left hand provided an auditory cue to the left
hemisphere.) A folded handkerchief was put into his left hand which squeezed it,
turned it around, and then smoothly reached backward and slipped it into
his left hip pocket. At this point he said "Oh, sure, that's a comb."
When told he should feel it with his right hand, he did and then shook his
head with a chagrined look and said, "A handkerchief." (Here, the lefthand
behavior was insufficient to permit accurate identifcation by the left
hemisphere.) 4.2. Another example of crosscueing by L.B. Stuart Butler described (personal communication) a situation in which
he and Ulf Norsell were trying to determine if L.B.'s right hemisphere
could talk. The idea was to restrict the input to the right hemisphere by
using left halffield projection or by putting objects in the left hand
which are not apt to provide ipsilateral input, i.e., objects which don't
have sharp points, which don't offer an obvious temperature clue, etc. So
Butler and Norsell (45) were using a wooden sphere, a wooden cube without
any sharp edges, and a wooden pyramid. The question was, could L.B.
indicate above chance level whether he had in his left hand the sphere,
the cube, or the pyramid? Surprisingly, he was identifying them most of
the time! He had his left hand underneath a screen so he couldn't see
what was in his hand, and they couldn't understand how he could recognize
the objects so reliably. They at first thought it might be some kind of
subcortical communication. Then they noticed that he was looking around the room.
When they put the sphere in his left hand he would look at the wall
clock and he'd say, "It's the round one." When they put the cube in
his hand he would look at the door and he'd say, "That's the square one."
When they put the pyramid in his Ieft hand he'd look up at the ceiling
and pause a minute and then say, "It must be that triangular shape."
When Butler blindfolded him, instead of letting him look around the room,
his verbal reports of what was in his left hand fell to chance. 4.3. Using chimeric stimuli, Levy et al. asked the subjects to point to
the picture that matched what had just been presented; they observed that
either hand could indicate a picture selected by gaze. L.B. was noted on
several occasions to use scanning of surroundings and gaze fxation to cue
his left hemisphere (46). 4.4. Crosscueing by C.C., as observed 8 years postop (13 October
1973). With respect to anomia, this patient's performance was somewhat
variable; it was remarkable, considering his low IQ (below 80 both pre and
postop) how he could sometimes identify objects in the left hand on the
basis of quite minimal cues. For example, when a pencil was placed in his
left hand he was rather slow and deliberate about answering, turning the
pencil over in his hand and pressing with the ball of his index finger
first on the eraser end and then on the pointed end, and then saying,
"It's a pencil." When a dime was placed in his left hand he rolled it around, rubbed it
and said, "It's a penny." He then said "Well, isn't it?" When told that
he was not correct he said, '.Maybe it's a dime." When a rubber band was put into his left hand he first shook his head.
However, after rolling it around and then maneuvering it into a position
in which it looped over his thumb and opposing fingers so that there was
some springy resistance to partial opening of the hand, he said, "a rubber
band." When a pair of glasses was put in his left hand his fingers rubbed the
lenses, closed one bow with a snap, and he then said, "Are these glasses?"
When he was told that he should try again, he said, "Well, I don't know."
When this same obJect was then placed into his right hand he immediately
said, "Yes, it's a pair of glasses." When a pipe (still warm) was placed in his left hand he said, "Is it a
cigar?". When he was told that this was incorrect, he shook his head and
said, "I don't know." When it was placed in his right hand he immediately
said, "It is a pipe." When a small paper clip was put into his left hand, he turned it over
several times and finally said, "I don't know." When it was placed into
his right hand he immediately said, "It's a clip." He was then asked
"What kind of clip?"; and he replied, "To keep papers together." A small pine cone was placed into the left hand and he was at a total
loss to say what it was. When this same object was placed into the right
hand he said, "It's one of those-I don't know what you call it-it comes
from a tree." When he was allowed to see it, he said, "Yes it is from a
tree. What do you call it?" When he was told, "pine cone," he said, "Oh
yes, that's what it is." From the above, it is clear that C.C. readily recognized and named
objects in the right hand, except with the last object (the pine cone)
which he could no more readily name in full vision than he could when
palpating it in his right hand. In contrast, objects in the left hand were
much less readily identified either by verbal description or by naming;
any success in this regard apparently depended upon partial information
which sometimes led to the correct answer and sometimes to an answer which
was related but not correct. The use of pain, from a pencil point, is a
cue which I have observed in four different complete commissurotomy
patients. Identification of the rubber band apparently involved some
proprioceptive information. The glasses provided a definite auditory clue,
and possibly a slight temperature clue. The identifcation of a pipe as
"cigar" is particularly interesting-it is possibly ascribable to an
olfactory cue. Alternatively, his speaking left hemisphere may have
received some sort of sparse categorical information either from the left
hand via uncrossed pathways, or possibly even from the other hemisphere
through internal pathways. In any event, it is quite instructive how an
individual with a verbal I.Q. under 70 ( 65 at this time) can use minimal
sensory clues to identify objects which are familiar to him. 4.5. Crosscueing (mainly unsuccessful) by R.M., when tested 4 months
postop (13 July 1966). He had the usual anomia in the left hand with his eyes covered. When a
pencil was placed in his left hand he held it appropriately but could not
name it. It was then put into his right hand and he said, "a pencil."
When a watch was put in his left hand, he said it was a "pencil" even
when, with his left hand, he was holding the watch up to his left ear. A
paper clip was put in his hand and he could not tell what it was; but when
he put it in his right hand he immediately identified it. A pipe in the
left hand was put into his mouth in an appropriate way; but it was called
a "pencil" even after the bit was between his teeth. When an ashtray was
put into his left hand he struck the table with it; it made a distinctive
sound and he immediately told me what it was. When a pair of glasses was
put in his hand, he could not name what he was holding until he tried to
put them on. A handkerchief was put in his left hand; his left hand
immediately put it into his Left hip pocket [in the same maneuver as used
by LB] but he could not say what it was. When he felt it with his
right hand he immediately named it correctly. 4.6. Less usual kinds of crosscueing. Some "tricks" of crosscueing are quite common across patients (in spite
of their only rarely if ever meeting one another). Other "tricks" are
more obviously idiosyncratic. Moreover, some "tricks" are easy to
recognize, whereas others are only doubtfully identifiable. Four patients
(A.A., L.B., C.C. And N.W.) have been personally observed by me, each on
several occasions, to turn a pencil in the left hand so the sharp point
could be pressed into the distal volar surface of a finger.
And I have personally observed five (A.A., L.B., C.C., R.Y., and R.M.)
loop a rubber band over several fingers to explore its elasticity. (Here,
there is probably some ipsilateral proprioceptive information from the
left hand to the left hemisphere. ) On the other hand, the following are "tricks" observed only on single
occasions: (a) On one occasion N.G. was being tested, in full view in the normal
way, on the Benton-Van Allen faces test. Part way through the test she
changed her manner of responding. Instead of pointing quickly with her
hand (to one of six choices), she would pause before her choices and move
her hand only after a motion of her head which resulted in pointing of her
chin toward the choice subsequently pointed out by hand. When this was
recognized and she was asked not to move her head she resumed the
undelayed pointing with her right hand. (b) (Courtesy of E. Zaidel) On one occasion L.B. was being tested by
presenting Peabody pictures to one halffield or the other. After a picture
of a tree appeared in the left halffield, his hands formed a triangle,
and he then said,"teepee". In addition to the noncommissural communications between the two
hemispheres in the splitbrain, there is another issue needing
clarification. That is, there are clearly other sources of duality or of
ambivalence besides having two hemispheres. We are familiar with the distinction between a pyramidal and
extrapyramidal system. We know that monkeys can function remarkably well
after the pyramids have been transected bilaterally. All movements are
commanded from the spinal cord, but what the spinal cord does can be
directed from above in more than one way, and these directives might well
be both concurrent and conflicting. So one can see here some opportunity
for ambivalence or conflict which requires only one hemisphere. There appear to be at least two kinds of memory (in each
hemisphere) which are anatomically specifiable: one is procedural memory
probably subserved by the basal ganglia; a second is declarative memory
(episodic and semantic) dependent on medial temporal structures. These
facts suggest that a dissociation between episodic memory and procedural
memory (I.e. Between explicit and implicit memories) might require only
one hemisphere. There are many kinds of duality which can be checked, and should be
checked, in hemispherectomized individuals because, if one saw that kind
of duality in them, then there would be no need to suppose that it depends
on the duality of the hemispheres. Unfortunately, very little has been
done along this line. Indeed, in view of the widespread availability of
hemispherectomy patients, it's astounding that this opportunity is not
Ibeing pursued to settle convincingly the relevance of hemispheric duality
for various kinds of "mental duality" (i.e. dissociations between what the
subject says he knows and what we believe he knows on the basis of
nonverbal behaviour). Having argued that considerable inter- hemispheric integration occurs
absent the corpus callosum ,because of a host of other unifying
mechanisms, behavioral as well neuronal and hormonal, I will move on now
to the complementary claim, that even with the commissures intact, there
is a significant degree of hemispheric independence. Before reviewing experimental data, I will first offer a
quantitative argument for a significant independence of hemispheric
function. According to both Leake (48) and Garrison (49), the first time this
kind of argument was used in medicine was by William Harvey in 1628.
Harvey measured the volume of the heart and counted the heart rate. He
asserted that the amount of blood that is pumped by the heart in any given
time (say in a day or an hour), could not possibly be produced in such
sizable amounts by the lungs. Therefore, the blood must circulate. He did
not demonstrate the circulation; he simply concluded that it must be so,
on this quantitative argument. And it was more than 30 years later (1661)
that Marcello Malpighi actually demonstrated the capillaries with the
microscope. An argument from quantitative anatomy in the present case is roughly as
follows: There are at least 200 million nerve fibers in the corpus
callosum (50). By contrast, within each hemisphere there are at least 10 billion
nerve cells,each with at least 100 connections (and many nerve cells, of
course, have thousands of connections). This means that the number of
connections between the hemispheres is less than 1% of the connections
within each hemisphere. Hence,that the information generated in one
hemisphere can be immediately transferred ormade available to the other is
hardly credible. We might suppose that information accumulated by one hemisphere during
waking could be transferred later, during sleep; but callosal activity
decreases markedly during EEG synchronization and/or REM sleep (52). In
any event, immediate sensory information in one hemisphere seems fully
available to the other only with respect to the midline, since for primary
sensory cortices it is the areas for midline representation which have
heavy callosal projections (53-56). Furthermore, as Marzi recently
wrote: "Since there is a clear trend . . . for a progressive increase in
the wealth of interhemispheric connections as one moves from the primary
visual cortex to extraoccipital visual areas, a reasonable assumption is
that the main burden of interhemispheric exchange of visual information
concerns late processing stages". (57). According to evidence to be considered next,higher order information
(as accompanies learning) is not necessarily shared or hemispherically
equivalent even when the cerebrum is anatomically intact. The experimental evidence to be considered here is of different kinds,
but it has mainly to do with incomplete interhemispheric transfer. Whereas
we usually emphasize the lack of interhemispheric transfer in the split
condition, the many authors who have re ported the splitbrain animal
experiments have sometimes alluded, albeit briefly, to the fact that in the intact case there is often (especially in the
unsophisticated animal) a lack of transfer. In general,if one trains a
monkey to do something with one hand, the monkey often doesn't straight
away do it as well with the other hand. After a while the monkey transfers better; that is, the lack of transfer typically
goes away, unlike the anatomically split condition where the lack
of transfer persists. A previous review (4) described some evidence for lack of
interhemispheric transfer of information in the intact brain including the
cat experiments of Myers (58). Also mentioned there was a lack of
transfer of spatial form discrimination from one hand to another during
early testing of a difficult task in monkeys (59). Butler and Francis
(60) reinvestigated this often evanescent phenomenon. They arranged for
the subjects (baboons) to reach through a tube to manipulate stimuli at
the other end, thus restricting movement of proximal joints. The animals
learned to rotate the stimuli (knobs)to get food, in either a clockwise or
counterclockwise direction, depending on the shape of the knob.. After the
subjects learned the task, the other hand was tested. Two different
problems (A and B) were used (three animals learned A first and three
learned B first). On the first problem, whether it was A or B, the authors
found: ". . . no animal was able to perform without further training
the discrimination learned with the other hand; in all cases the animals
required extensive training with the second hand before regaining the
proficiency reached with the first one.". On the second problem (whether B or A), rather than performing at
chance as on the first problem, there was often an abundance of errors
because of performance in a mirror image mode. These results could be
interpreted as showing the development of a learning set, that is, the
animals may actually learn to transfer information, with repeated
testing. A similar tendency to acquire transfer was observed by Berlucchi
et al (61). A lack of intermanual transfer need not rule out
interhemispheric communication; it is possible that in some cases
information is transferred but that it is not initially used by the
receiving hemisphere.. Much earlier, in 1949, Sperry and Clark reported related findings in
gobies. (lt is worth recalling that the splitbrain story started with the
question of interocular transfer, i.e., whether learning transferred from
one eye to the other.) In this paper Sperry and Clark wrote
". . . the results seem to support the conclusion that the brain
organization of this teleost fish permits interocular transfer. but at the
same time the neural mechanisms involved are not so well developed that
good transfer is automatically assured in all instances ".(62). In fact, clearcut savings were observed in only 5 of 16 cases. Lesser
degrees of transfer were found in 4 whereas transfer was essentially nil
in 7. The l l without good transfer had not simply "forgotten" the task,
because retesting of the originally trained hemisphere showed
approximately the previous (trained) level of correct responses. Then the
untrained eye was again tested in 2 cases, and excellent transfer was
found in I of them. In considering the above experiments with fish, we recall that the
chiasmal crossing in these animals is essentially complete, so that
training one eye is tantamount to training one hemisphere directly and the
other only indirectly (if at all). A nearly complete chiasmal crossing is
also present in the rat and rabbit, which we consider next. Russell and Morgan (63) directed the input in the white rat to one
hemisphere by restricting the input to one eye. (The white rat's chiasm is
almost totally crossed, the wild rat has a little less crossing, whereas
in the human or monkey it is approximately 50%.) Then they tested the
other eye. What they concluded was that, in rats, a failure of interocular
transfer need not require an anatomical disconnection. On the contrary, as
they said, ". . . these results suggest that under certain conditions an
absence of interhemispheric communication is a characteristic of the
intact brain." [It is worth emphasizing here that transfer should be
better in a normal rat than in a human because the two thalami in a rat
are closely coupled by impressive midline thalamic nuclei whereas in the
human the two thalami are commonly not directly connected and the midline
nuclei are negligible.] Using rabbits, Van Hof repeatedly found "lateralization of the memory
trace"; but he cautiously concluded that "it would be premature to regard
the rabbit as a 'natural splitbrain preparation." (64). The rabbit has a
corpus callosum, of course; but the engram may not transfer if one sets up
the learning situation in the way used by Van Hof. Related results have been found in pigeons by a number of
investigators, beginning with Beritov and Chichinadze (65) and recently
considered in depth by Graves and Goodale (66, 67); they concluded that
transfer-or lack of it-depended upon the type of problem. Also apparently
depending upon the experimental conditions, either unilaterality or
bilaterality of the engram has been found in newborn chicks (68-71). In this context (monocular training and total chiasmal crossing) it is
instructive to consider a case which reinforces a previous point of this
essay: that we could mistakenly overemphasize the importance of the corpus
callosum for interhemispheric communication. Marzi et al. (72) used
Siamese cats, whose optic pathways fully cross, permitting restriction of
input to one hemisphere. They found a deficiency of interocular transfer
on some more difficult problems, as compared with cats having normal optic
chiasmata. The Siamese cats did show essentially complete transfer on
simpler problems: and they did so even with section of the neocommissures.
The authors suggest a role for subcortical connections, as these might be
more effective in Siamese cats in compensation for their chiasmal
peculiarities. For visual problems, in the experience of most investigators, monkeys
usually show transfer so long as the splenium is intact (73-77). But even
with all commissures intact, lack of transfer has occasionally been
evident as a learning deficit on testing of the second hemisphere. What is important for the purpose of this paper is that there are
certain learning situations which give rise to certain kinds of
information which do not readily transfer The likelihood that information will be transferred apparently depends
upon (among other things) the functional ability of the hemisphere
receiving the transfer, particularly if the ability has been reduced by a
lesion. Zeki did an important experiment along this line. After making
partial lesions in the parastriate cortex, he taught chiasm-sectioned
monkeys to do a problem with one eye or the other. When the eye on the
side of the lesion was trained first, there was very good transfer. But
when the eye on the unlesioned side was trained first, the second eye did
not show transfer. He suggested, because the unlesioned side learned with
fewer trials, that the interocular transfer in the original circumstance
was due to overtraining; a unidirectionality of transfer (for the problems
he used) was not found if lesions were placed on both sides (78). In addition to lack of interocular transfer, another manifestation of
hemispheric independence is an inability to crosscompare objects presented
to separate eyes. Voneida and Robinson (79) found this in two
chiasmsectioned cats. These authors were also able to train contradictory
habits to separate eyes when the rostral onethird of the callosum was
intact and there was still some interocular transfer. Other examples of
unilateral engrams include a conditioned salivary response with surgically
split tongue of the dog (80) and a conditioned auditory response in cats
(81). 7. RESULTS WITH CORTICAL SPREADING DEPRESSION (CSD), INCLUDING SOME METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS Next we consider the cortical spreading depression (CSD) experiments.
If one puts a drop or two of concentrated potassium chloride solution on
the cortex of a hemisphere, especially a smooth brain like that of a rat,
waves of depression spread over the cortex so that the entire hemisphere
becomes temporarily inactivated. Meanwhile, one can train the other
hemisphere. Then after the potassium chloride has been washed away, the
rat has two good hemispheres, but only one which has learned the task. If
one then inactivates the trained hemisphere with CSD, the other hemisphere
doesn't know the problem. So even though the animal had two hemispheres functioning normally for a while, the learning
didn't transfer. Bures and colleagues have reviewed this subject in
great detail(82). The main point is that CSD provides an independent kind
of information leading to the important conclusion; that there may be lack
of interhemispherictransfer with commissures intact. Experiments using CSD have sometimes been discounted (31, 83) on the
objection that CSD experiments have serious methodologic deficiencies.
But, as we shall see, this objection is only narrowly applicable. Before
examining this objection, we first recall that every technique has its
methodologic difficulties and ambiguities; we can consider, as a notable
example, the various techniques for cerebral localization. Cerebral localization (CL) in cases of brain tumor has been
extraordinarily productive: many of Hughlings Jacksons' notable
conclusions regarding CL were based on tumor cases (12). Yet it is
generally recognized that tumors can be misleading as a result of pressure
effects~ or because of ongoing diaschisis in the tumors of rapid growth.
The phenomenon of tumor ''momentum" is well known to neurologists. Indeed,
these and related phenomena gave rise to an entire literature on "false
localization." Because of the problems associated with CL in tumor cases, it has often
been asserted that CL should be based not on tumor cases, but on cases of
fixed deficit from thrombotic stroke, preferably cases eventually coming
to autopsy, although in recent years CAT scan and MRI localization have
significantly complemented autopsy findings. Using stroke cases for CL
has a long and illustrious history. But clinicians are aware that the
putatively critical infarct is usually accompanied by other infarcts,
previously occurring and supposedly "silent," and that these other
infarcts contribute in all likelihood to the behavioral deficit consequent
to the "critical" infarct. (A wellknown example is that when a
retrorolandic lesion in the right hemisphere produces a longlasting
deficit in face recognition (prosopagnosia), it typically has been
preceded by a lefthemisphere lesion, often asymptomatic.) Moreover,
considerable ambiguity can be present in cases of single thrombotic
infarcts, because these usually occur in a brain already affected by
arteriosclerosis, with lessened compensatory reserve or even, as in many
cases, with overt manifestations before the stroke. The ambiguities of CL in older patients with strokes can be avoided by
studying youths wounded in war. Luria's book on traumatic aphasia, which
really made his reputation, was based on Russian soldiers from WWII (84).
Marie and Foix described French soldiers from WWI (85). Russell and Espir
(86), as well as Newcombe (87), studied British soldiers from WWII. Some
very important studies have been based on missile wounds in young people.
Of course, these are not free of problems either. It's not altogether
clear where the boundaries of a missile injury are. What may be even more
problematic is that the missile can cause vascular derangement, for
example, spasm in a blood vessel, which then results in focal damage to
brain tissue at a considerable distance from the missile track. Perhaps all of this tumor, stroke, and missile evidence should be
discounted, and we should depend on cases of surgical removal where the
boundaries of the ablation have been precisely described. The work at the
Montreal Neurological Institute by Brenda Milner (88, 89) and her students
and colleagues has utilized just that sort of material. However, we are
not always persuaded of the total reliability of the surgeon's reports,
especially now that we have experience with postoperative CT scans.
Besides, no matter how precise or reliable the surgical removal, these
studies concern cases of longstanding epilepsy, so that there are
ambiguities attributable to the compensatory changes that occurred
subsequent to the epileptogenic lesions. The same sort of problem comes up with hemispherectomy, which is often
as anatomically clean as any removal can be. In such cases anything in the
form of behavior is attributable to the residual hemisphere. But most
hemispherectomies have been done for infantile hemiplegia which means that
people who have had those operations have had a long disease history with
opportunity for a lot of compensatory change. Even when hemispherectomy
has been done in adults of normal development, and that's quite rare,
there is some delay between the operation and behavioral testing during
which compensation could occur. In fact, compensation has been documented
with repeated testing (90). The confounding effects of compensatory change can be avoided with
the "temporary hemispherectomy" of the carotid amytal (Wada) test. But here
we have other problems including that the posterior cerebral artery of the
injected side often does not feed from the carotid artery. Moreover,
carotid branches to the brain stem can seriously affect the behavioral
results of the injection. Does this mean that conclusions from all of the foregoing types of
material should be dismissed? Certainly not! The point is that every
patient population and every experimental method has its problems. This is
also true of the EEG approach to CL, the use of blood flow measures, the
PET scanner, and stimulation mapping. as well as the split brain. The lesson here is twofold. First, one does not summarily dismiss
data having interpretive complications; one takes the time to become
familiar with the qualifications and ambiguities, and then relies upon the
data with appropriate reservations. Second, a conclusion indicated by any method or material must
remain tentative until confrmed by other methods having different
methodologic problems. When several different approaches point to the same conclusion, we can
have increased confidence in the result. It is convergence upon a common
conclusion,through a variety of different approaches, which gives us a
near certainty in our conviction of complementary hemispheric
specialization in the human. Similarly, it is the convergence of a variety
of evidence which leaves us in little doubt aboutthe duality of the brain.
One kind of evidence for cerebral duality comes from cortical spreading depression (CSD) and we now turn to a closer
appraisal of the supposed deficiencies of this approach. Gazzaniga and LeDoux (31) and Denenberg (83) dismissed CSD evidence
largely on the basis of a review by Petrinovich (91). What concerns us in
this paper is whether the methodologic difficulties pointed out by
Petrinovich weaken the conclusion described above, namely that an engram
originally engendered in one hemisphere (while the other was subjected to
CSD) does not automatically transfer to the other hemisphere when both are
returned to a normal state. In general, for the untrained hemisphere to
exhibit the learning on its own, when the orginally trained hemisphere is
depressed, a number of training trials are necessary with both
hemispheres undepressed. That is, substantial transfer commonly
requires interdepression training (IDT). What we find on careful
examination of the Petrinovich review is not an objection to this
conclusion. Rather, what we find is a critique of other inferences
from CSD studies, in particular the belief that the engram is always
completely lateralized, or that when learning is lateralized, that IDT
produces transfer with a specifc number of trials. . . At first glance, Petrinovich's review appears to be summarized in his
closing clause: ". . . it is concluded that the technique (CSD) is of
questionable utility in elucidating with any precision mechanisms involved
in the formation and transfer of memory traces." But it is the
''precision," not the fact of transfer, which is the object of his
critique. He specifically singles out for censure the conclusion of Albert
that it takes only 3 min for the trained hemisphere to transmit the memory
(during IDT) but it requires 2 h for the transmitted memory to consolidate
in the untrained hemisphere. The greater part of his review is devoted to
the sources of error in three articles by Albert (in Neuropsychologia in
1966), and two papers by Mayes (in Behavioral Biology in 1973) whose
findings were congruent with the findings of Albert. The errors included
running animals from light to dark, assuming that washingoff KCI quickly
restores cortical normality. discarding the results from recalcitrant
animals, and the use of inappropriate statistical procedures. Petrinovich
does not deny that it is possible to train one hemisphere while keeping
the other one untrained with CSD, or that the memory trace or engram
subsequently can remain largely lateralized even with both hemispheres
functioning. As Petrinovich says in the opening sentence of his
discussion, "it is generally agreed that IDT produces transfer, where
transfer is defined as the savings observed when the initially depressed
cortex is trained undepressed following IDT. " One of those [Denenberg (83)] who discounted CSD data relied not only
on Petrinovich but also on the review by Gaston (92). But her criticisms
are concerned solely with the question of taste aversion, that is, whether
CSD experiments can prove the participation of cerebral cortex in a rat
learning to avoid certain tastes, learning which possibly can occur
without cortex at all. Nowhere does she deny that an originally unilateral
engram can remain lateralized in the posttraining, undepressed state. In conclusion, CSD experiments have provided some very clear examples
of the failure of intact commissures to effect a synchronization (in
the sense of equivalence of information content) of the two cerebral
hemispheres. [{ This story also shows how hasty reading can lead to
misreading and malusage of the literature}]. We consider next the intact human. In the young child, interhemispheric
communication might be deficient since myelination of callosal fibers
takes 10 or more years to reach completion (93). In fact, deficits in
tactile crossmatching have been found (94). But in the adult, lack of
interhemispheric communication has been less directly demonstrable. A dramatic result was reported by Risse and Gazzaniga in 1978 (95).
Eight righthanded candidates for neurosurgical intervention were having
carotid amytal testing. After injection of the left carotid, the patient
having become right hemiplegic and aphasic, the examiners presented, in
the midst of other testing, some objects to the view of the patient. When
the patient subsequently was moving well and talking well, they asked,
"What were the objects we showed you?" Six patients replied, "I don't
remember that you showed me anything." And they said, "Here are some
objects;point to one"; and the patients pointed to the correct test
items. What the authors concluded was that the nonverbal engram can
remain inaccessible to linguistic report. It's possible that this result
reflects two "kinds" of memory in one hemisphere, since recognition is
different from (and easier than) recall with verbal report (89). Moreover,
we still await replication, which has not been found by others who were
looking for it (96). [{A review of Wadatesting in the 1990s is needed
here}]. A lack of interhemispheric transfer in the intact human has been
demonstrated in other ways. It seems reasonable to suppose, as did Butler
and Francis (60), that manual manipulations will show less transfer to the
other side, the more distal (in the extremity) are the crucial aspects.
This could be expected in humans as well as monkeys, hence it is no
surprise that it is for fine digital manipulations or detections that
savings seem least. A good example is the learning of Braillelike patterns
by sighted adults new to the task. Although there are usually some
savings, it requires further training with the second hand to reach the
same level of proficiency as with the first hand. Indeed, when going from
left to right in right handers, just as much training may be needed for
thesecond hand (Wagner, 1977, reproduced in Harris, 1980) (97). The amount of transfer probably depends upon what the second hand is
doing while the first is being trained. Hicks et al. (98) had subjects
learn a sequence of key presses on a typewriter with one hand while the
second hand was either resting or grasping a table leg; partial transfer
occurred to the resting hand, but not to the hand occupied with grasping
during the original training. An ingenious study using dichotic listening to digits and tones was
reported by Goodglass and Calderon (99), and their conclusions were
supported in another dichotic study by Sidtis and Bryden (100). This is
not even a situation in whichthe material is clearly directed to one
hemisphere or the other. These results can be summarized by quoting the discussion by Bradshaw and Nettleton (101)
their excellent review, Human Cerebral Asymmetry, in which they say:
"These results show that the two hemispheres could concurrently and
independently process that component of a complex stimulus for which each
is dominant." Next we come to notable experiments by Landis and coworkers (102).
Their purpose, in the beginning at any rate, was to ask: Is there a right
hemisphere superiority for the recognition of facial expression? We know
that the right hemisphere is predominant, although not exclusive by any
means, for the recognition of individual faces. The question naturally
arises, is the right hemisphere also predominant for the recognition of
facial expression? They did a visual halffield test as follows: They
presented centrally a schematic outline of a familiar object, and in one
or the other halffield a photograph of the same thing or of something else
and asked, "Are these the same?" For example, a schematic drawing of a
corkscrew appeared in the middle at the point of fixation along with a
photograph in either the left or right halffield; if it was a photograph
of a corkscrew the subject would push the button. If it was different, no
reaction was necessary. And they measured the reaction time. They did the
same procedure with facial expressions. A schematic diagram of a front
view face appears in the middle, along with a photograph, in either the
right or left halffield, of a face in profile with an expression (happy,
sad, etc.). Is it the same expression or not? It turned out that the
reaction times are less in the left half field for the facial expressions
whereas the reaction times for objects like the corkscrew are less in the
right halffield. Now this is not altogether surprising; it's what most of
us would expect on the basis of earlier evidence for right dominance for
faces. We might also expect that people would be more accurate in
recognizing the similarity of objects than in recognizing identity of
facial expressions; indeed, the responses were more accurate(96% correct)
for the objects than for the expressions (76% correct). [{Right hemisphere
predominance for recognition of facial expressions seems not to be true for lipreading, presumably because the facial recognition aspect is
overridden by linguistic demands (103).}] Landis et al. also noticed that the subjects showed very different
levels of awareness of their decisions, often having second thoughts. That
is, erroneous object matchings were often followed by rapid recognition of
the errors; and accurate object matchings were confirmed. By contrast,
when matching expressions the subjects repeatedly expressed the sense of
having made an error when, in fact, the manual response had been
accurate. In other words, the subject made many accurate decisions
on facial expressions without correctly monitoring their own
behavior. "However," the authors wrote, ''this is an incidental
observation which needs to be explored systematically" (102). There subsequently appeared a paper by Landis with Graves and
Goodglass; the title of the paper asked, "A SplitBrain Phenomenon in
Normal Subjects?" (104). The same stimuli were used, but they modified
the method of presentation. First, the photographs of objects and faces
were presented randomly in one or the other halffield. Also, they made
the presentation time sufficiently shorter for the objects so the subjects
were wrong about 25~% of the time with both the expressions and the
objects. After responding, the subject was expected to report, "whenever you think you made a mistake." The principal point here
concerns the individual's monitoring of his own behavior. In this second
experiment the authors were not looking at the reaction times but wanted
to systematically inquire after the subjectsthe second thoughts.
They found that the monitoring with the object matching was very good,
whereas the monitoring for the expression matching was at chance level-the verbalized corrections did not reflect the person's
abilities to make accurate decisions about expressions. That is to say,
when the behavior was presumably controlled by the right hemisphere,
second thoughts were not reliable. In the author's words: "The result for
the emotional expression matching task resembles results obtained with splitbrain patients." Hemispheric capabilities have been studied in three principal ways:
from studies of patients with lateralized lesions, from studies using
lateralized input (as in the halffield studies just described), and from
studies using lateralized readout (including both radiographic and
electrical methods). The final bit of evidence I will present concerns the
last, namely, lateralized readout in the form of
smatosensory(tactile)evoked potentials. The experiment was done by John
Desmedt (105, 106). He used as a stimulus the flat end of a cylindrical
(dowelshaped) rod. The end of the dowel briefly and repeatedly touched the
ball of a palpating finger. If the end of the dowel had a ridge on it, the
subject's task was to determine the orientation of the ridge, (eastwest or
northsouth). If there was no ridge, the subject did not have to make any
spatial orientation judgements. In this experiment, each time the dowel
touches the end of the finger, it evokes a potential recorded from the scalp. And each time, the subject has to decide whether there's a ridge
or not,and if so, how it is oriented. The end surface of the dowel, when it was smooth, elicited a
potential which was the same overeach of the two hemispheres. However,
when the end came up with a ridge, there was a different potential evoked
over the right hemisphere, whereas for the left hemisphere the fact that
there was a ridge on the end caused no change. Let me translate for you the author's conclusion: "These observations are notable because they show the localization
in the right hemisphere of cortical mechanisms put into play by the
perception of spatial orientation in normal subjects. They show that the
capacities of the right hemisphere inferred from neurologic studies of
individuals with lateralized lesions do not result from a liberation from
control of the left hemisphere. These findings are therefore in favor of
the view that there is not a unilateral dominance by the left hemisphere
and they are in favor of the notion that each of the two hemispheres
possesses different capacities and that the capacities of the right
hemisphere can be manifested [independently]even when the commissural
functions of the corpus callosum are intact (105). Since the foregoing was true with each hand, it would appear to
involve, in the righthand testing, a callosal relay rather than direct
access (as distinguished by Zaidel in 1983 (107)). That is, it seems a
case of unihemispheric function (with lateralized electrical sign) which
is both preceded (for relay of input) and followed (for verbal report) by
interhemispheric communications. It is understandable that someone would say, (as some do from time to
time) that two hemispheres acting together are better than one, especially
if we suppose that they are interacting in a mutually supportive manner
(108). That two should be better than one, and moreover that two should
incline to act together rather than separately, seems to be in accord not
only with our usual intuition but also with some objective, experimental
facts. Indeed, we have previously emphasized the crucial importance of
hemispheric interaction (4). Of course, in the human the two hemispheres
are different (101, 109112). This might incline sometimes to interference
rather than simple reinforcement, something to be determined, in al1
likelihood, for each particular circumstance. That two brains should incline to work together and that when they do
they are better than one does not, however, demonstrate that there was but
one brain to begin with. In fact, it seems actually to be a sort of
backhanded argument for the twobrain view, an argument of interest even if
a bit redundant for those who have already found the forehanded evidence
more persuasive. Descriptions of human behavior in terms of "one brain" or of "the mind"
(singular) have been with us for a very long time. Indeed, they have been
in use for so long, and have been so often helpful that we can rest
assured that such usage wil1 continue. On the other hand, there are circumstances for which the "one brain"
interpretation has not sufficed. More and more people find it not only
convenient, but fruitful to attribute to each hemisphere the qualities of
a mind (25). The number of such persons is growing. Moreover, since in
science as elsewhere one finds what one looks for, we can expect that
observations consonant with or even demanding of such "two brain" usage
wil1 continually accrue. Those who find such usage uncongenial could find
themselves in a progressively shrinking minority. It seems to be necessary to change from one usage to another, depending
on the circumstances. We might then ask if this is merely a matter of
verbal usage. Is it possible that our describing the bram as sometimes
single and other tmes double is related to our vacillation between
mentalistic and physiologic explanations of behavior? Most of us do
resort to both of these approaches, emphasizing one or the other as it
seems to suit our needs. How can we hold simultaneously two seemingly incompatible (and
occasionally conflicting) descriptions? Possibly relevant here is a
wellknown precedent in quantum physics, whose practitioners learned to
hold both the wave and particle views simultaneously. Einstein expressed
it in 1924 as follows: "We now have two theories of light, both
indispensable, but it must be admitted, without any logical connection
between them, despite 20 years of colossal effort by theoretical
physicists" (113). A halfcentury later Holton wrote, "One cannot construct
an experiment which simultaneously exhibits the wave and particle aspects
of atomic matter. A particular experiment will always show only one view
or [the other] " (113). If the mentalism/physicalism pair persists not simply as verbal usage
but because no experiment can decide between them, we might consider that
they make up what Niels Bohr called a "complementarity" (114). As pointed
out by Holton, Bohr felt that the concept of complementarity was
applicable not only to the wave/particle contrast but that it could be
particularly helpful in psychology (113). The idea that quantum
theoretical concepts could help us understand brain states has often been
argued by D. O. Walter (115, 116). What is complementarity ? By the term "complementarity" we refer to the existence of two
conflicting interpretations, such that either interpretation provides a
useful but incomplete description. As a result, both interpretations must
be utilized (usually by alternating or oscillating between them) in order
to have the fullest possible account. We do not say that a
complementarity exists whenever we have two conflicting explanations of
something. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of such pairs are not
complementary. It is a prominent aspect of scientific endeavor to devise
experiments which will help us decide between one or the other
explanation, to choose what we call the "correct" interpretation. In
order for a mutually conflicting pair to be considered a
"complementarity," at least two conditions must be fulfilled: (i) After numerous attempts to formulate a decisive test, either in
actual practice or by thought experiment, it becomes accepted by workers
in the field that no such experiment is possible [Feynman (117)]. Since
this conclusion is necessarily dependent upon the somewhat dubious belief
that current workers in a fleld are as knowledgeable as they will ever be,
a certain reserve inevitably accompanies any belief that no such crucial
experiment will be forthcoming. Such doubts as continue to exist in spite
of the lack of a decisive experiment can to some extent be allayed by
adding a compelling, rational argument, such as the following: (ii) It is realized that the two conflicting views possess certain
essential properties in common, whatever may be their superficial
differences, so that no crucial "distinguishing test" should be expected.
Such a criterion for waveparticle complementarity was reached when it was
realized that a mathematical formulation of the wave theory (the wave
equation of Erwin Schrodinger) was of sufficient scope and power to
account for both aspects. Not only was Schrodinger's equation shown to be
isomorphic with the matrix algebra of Heisenberg, but it could be used to
predict discontinuous intervals (i.e., quantum jumps) in spite of being a
differential equation involving only continuous functions of continuous
variables [Feynman (117)]. Heisenberg put it as follows: "Although the
classical theories of the corpuscular and wave pictures are so entirely
different, both physically and mathematically, the quantum theories of the
two are identical" (118). (iii) There is a third, more technical criterion to be discussed below,
after some further generalities. It is their apparent incompatibility when the two views are expressed
in ordinary language, but not when expressed in mathematical terms, which
is crucial. As Holton wrote: "What Bohr
had done in 1927, was to develop a point of view which would allow him to
accept both members of the (a, å) couple as valid pictures of
nature, accepting the continuitydiscontinuity (or waveparticle) duality as
an irreducible fact, instead of attempting to dissolve one member of the
pair in the other . .. Bohr asked that physicists accept both a and
å athough both would not be found in the same plane of focus at any
given time . . . We see once why all parties concerned, both those
identified with a and those identified with å, would not easily
accept a new thema which saw a basic truth in the existence of a paradox
that the others were trying to remove." (113). It is worth reiterating how important is the difference between the
mathematical formalism (in this case, quantum mechanics) and descriptions
in natural language. As Rohrlich wrote, ". . . we find that our common ianguage is utterly inadequate for
the description of the quantum world and that the mathematical language is
much more suitable. [In quantum mechanics an electron] is "just like a
particle" or "just like a wave" only in limiting cases depending on the
particular experiment." (1l9). There is a nice way to picture the waveparticle complementarity and its
dependence upon our choice of observational method. This was pointed out
to me,in conversation, by Professor F. Zachariasen and goes as
follows: consider that the event to be
observed has a distribution of definite width (we would ordinarily
describe the width as a function of the variance). Then, if the resolving
power of the observational method were quite wide compared to the width of the
observable, one could consider the latter to be negligible; i.e., we would
see the observable as a spike with a definite size (height) and a definite
location, but no area (i.e., extension) in the ordinary sense. However,
if our observational method had a very narrow field of view, we would
appear to be confronted (as we move our aperture around) with a standing
wave of essentially infinite extent whose height would be different at
various locations and whose area we could determine between any two
reasonably close locations, but for which the ordinary concept of location would be inapplicable. If we could formulate a resolution of what we see now as continual
vacillation between two different views, what might be the quantitative
concomitants? Does it make sense that "mind" resonates between the two
states: "single" and "double"? Could it make sense to describe
hemispheric interaction in terms of a phase angle whose size represented
the amount of hemispheric synchrony (or disparity)? Does the method of
testing (for example, psychological testing) actually affect in some
degree whether we see the mind as double or single? This sounds at first
like something we might accept. What most of us may not yet be prepared
to accept is that the same observable will differ from time to time and that this indeterminacy is not an observational deficiency but is,
indeed, the real nature of mind. Abrupt transitions from one state to another (as from a "onebrain
state" to a "twobrain state") certainly do not require the assumption of
an underlying complementarity; abrupt transitions of water to ice or vapor
are familiar examples. Complementarity could be relevant if it were the
case (which it is not for water) that a gradual increase in temperature
(or other variable) could have on different trials different results, each
with a certain probability but none fully determined. Accepting
complementarity (i.e., accepting simultaneously two mutually incompatible
views) is something most scientists will not do unless it is forced upon
them in each specific case by experimental evidence. (No matter how
convenient, seemingly rational, or esthetically pleasing it might be!)So
we come to the third criterion alluded to above: (iii) This third criterion is essential to any actual application of
quantum mechanics; and it is claimed, by some at least, that this
criterion should be satisfied whenever one wishes to introduce the idea of
complementarity. The criterion is that when there are two or more routes
to arrive at some result, the probability distribution of the result must
be predictable on the assumption of superposition of probability
amplitudes (expressed in complex numbers) rather than probabilities. This
is the case when the probabilities of the alternative routes are not
essentially independent. There is a substantial body of opinion, e.g.,
Putterman (120), that no such interaction should be expected on the
macroscopic level. If that is so, not only would the concept of
complementarity be inapplicable to the onebrain/twobrain issue, but indeed
(Niels Bohr notwithstanding) to almost any problem of brain function. Although the assumptiom of superposition might be necessary, it is not
sufficient. Suppose we found that a behavior having a Gaussian
distribution when exhibited by persons with hemispherectomy had, when
exhibited by intact individuals, an interferencelike distribution (more or
less Wshaped); then we could conclude that there was an interference
reminiscent of quantum mechanics. But this would not justify the
conclusion that there is a "deep complementarity" in the physicists'
sense. This objection can be expressed more generally as follows: although
acceptance of contradictory models, using sometimes one and sometimes
another, may be necessary in a wide variety of complex situations (indeed,
it is typical of real life), one should not consider this to be
"complementarity" in the physicists' sense. For physicists,
complementarity asserts a fundamental limitation on our ability to
describe the basics of nature in ordinary language, whereas in the complex
situations of real life the alternating use of contradictory models, and
the airing of a diversity of views, merely reflects our current lack of
understanding (121). This is an enlightening argument but one wonders if we can ever feel we
know it all about anything. If complementarity or superposition (or any
other idea) can be used to throw light on a subject, who is to say that it
is not appropriate only because in that subject (unlike physics) we are
not yet "fully knowledgeable"? Even if a quantum theoretic approach were useful, it might not be
needed, smce there are now available a number of other methods for dealing
in a classical, deterministic way with the problem of more than one stable
outcome of shared probabilities. These include for example, variations on
the population equation (122). [{ since this was written, there has been
cosiderable development of complexity and chsaos theories going well
beyond the population equasion{[. Should such approaches be workable, we
might still have (without complementarity) the possibility of both
singularity and duality of mind at different times. But then, as in the
case of a continuum between one mind and two, all of the observable states
would be interpretable in terms of just two minds and their combinations,
including overlap or intersection in varying degree. Among neuroscientists there remain many who still find uncongenial the
twobrain view. To them we say: find an experimental situation which is
explained by the onebrain view and not by the double brain. There are now
available data which are inexplicable on the onebrain view; are there also
objective data which are incompatible with the twobrain view? If not,
considering complementarity may not be necessary, or even reasonable. And
we can then look forward to the eventual demise of the doctrine that our
two hemispheres make up but one brain. The splitbrain affords us an anatomically defined circumstance in which
a single individual can manifest two minds, each with its own
discriminative, mnemonic, and volitional capacities. Suppose that we
restored the corpus callosum; would that reduce the complexities? To put
it differently, if we added 200 million bridging nerve fibers, would a
previously complicated situation (that is, mental duality) become more
simple? We might even suspect that the mental numerosity of the intact brain is greater that that of the splitbrain. If an individual with a hemispherectomy has one mind, and two
individuals each with a hemispherectomy have two minds, where between them shall we
place people with splitbrains, who are clearly less double than two
individuals with hemispherectomy? And where should we place the intact
brain? If numerosity of mind were a continuum, it might be easier to describe
the splitbrain as well as the intact brain. As it is, our current language
forces us to jump one way or the other. Between "one mind" and "two minds"
to describe either the splitbrain or the intact brain, "two minds" seems
closer to being correct. If the language which we have inherited from the past were changed, we
might be able to provide better answers than we have at present. Until we
do have a better vocabulary, we are stuck with anthropomorphizing the
hemispheres. And we are stuck with the resistance that such usage will
elicit in those who (however poorly unified they may be) know that they
are better unified than any pair of people with hemispherectomy. We are on the threshold of a revolution in the way in which we talk
about the nature of mind and about human nature. We possess now an
abundance of facts which are not adequately comprehended by the concepts
which we have inherited from the past. Thinking of the mind as double can provide some resolution of the
centuryold conflict in neurology between holism and topism. And it seems to me quite likely that thinking in terms of a
duality of the mind can provide us with better understanding of repression
and of conscientiation than some of the wellknown theories with which we
are presently provided.
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BULLETIN OF CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCES 51, 3 - 29 (1986) 1. INTRODUCTION
2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
3. SOME EXTRACALLOSAL UNIFYING MECHANISMS
4. SOME EXAMPLES OF NONVERBAL CROSSCUEING (AND OF ITS FAILURE) IN THE
HUMAN WITH COMPLETE CEREBRAL COMMISSUROTOMY.
5. OTHER SOURCES OF "MENTAL DUALITY"
6. A QUANTITATIVE ANATOMY ARGUMENT FOR SIGNIFICANT HEMISPHERIC
INDEPENDENCE WITH NEOCOMMISSURES INTACT
7. EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FOR SIGNIFICANT HEMISPHERIC INDEPENDENCE WITH
RESPECT TO LEARNING.
8. HEMISPHERIC INDEPENDENCE IN THE INTACT HUMAN
9. BOTH ONEBRAIN AND TWOBRAINS: A CASEOF COMPLEMENTARITY?
10. ARGUMENTS AGAINST COMPLEMENTARITY
11.CONCLUDING REMARKS