What is split brain surgery?

Answer 1

A surgical brain procedure where the corpus callosum is cut off. Communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain is no longer possible. It is done as a last resort treatment to severe epilepsy.

Answer 2

There are two ideas about split brains. One is the thought that a person uses one side more than the other. This is a controversial idea.

The other is an condition where the two haves are actually cut off from each other. People with autism have some of this (more or less) as the reason for their condition. At other times the connections are cut on purpose because of severe, uncontrollable seizures. If the two haves can not communicate together, the person has great problems integrating what they take in. It would be like having two computers in your head that do not communicate. The movie "The Rain Man" is based on this.

Answer 3

Neuroscientists have long debated whether certain people have two independent minds running in parallel inside their skulls. That sounds spooky, but some evidence suggests yes. For example, there are split-brain patients, who had their corpus callosums surgically severed to help control epilepsy and whose left and right brain cannot communicate as a result. Normally people have a connection between both brain halves called the corpus callosum.
Split-brain patients have little trouble drawing two different geometric figures at the same time, one with each hand. Normal people bomb this test. (Try it, and you’ll see how mind-bendingly
hard it is.)
Some neuroscientists scoff at these anecdotes, saying the claims for two separate minds are exaggerated. But one thing is certain: two minds or no, split-brain people feel mentally unified; they never feel the two hemispheres fighting for control, or feel their consciousness flipping back and forth.
That’s because one hemisphere, usually the left, takes charge. And many neuroscientists argue that the same thing happens in normal brains. One hemisphere probably always dominates the mind, a role that neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga called the interpreter. (Per George W. Bush, you could also call it “the decider”).
In split-brain patients, the know-it-allness of the left brain can skew their thinking. In one famous experiment University of California, Santa Barbara psychologist Michael Gazzaniga flashed, for a split-second, two pictures to a split-brain teenager named P.S.—a snowscape to his right brain and a chicken claw to his left brain. Next, Gazzaniga showed P.S. an array of objects and had him pick two. P.S.’s left hand grabbed a snow shovel, his right hand a rubber chicken. So far, so good. Gazzaniga then asked him why he’d picked those things.
P.S.’s linguistic left brain knew all about the chicken, of course, but remained ignorant of the snowscape. And, unable to accept that it might not know something, his left-brain interpreter devised its own reason. “That’s simple,” P.S. said. “The chicken claw goes with the chicken, and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed.” He was completely convinced of the truth of what he’d said. Less euphemistically, you could call the left-brain interpreter a part- time confabulator.

Answer 4

These patients have their connection between the two halves of the brain called the corpus callsoum cut.