大腦左右獨立，形成兩個獨立人格？ 1個大腦中也許住著幾十個人 l 老鳴TV

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In 1960, neurosurgery made great strides.

Doctors could now easily split a patient's brain into two halves within the skull, completely separating the left and right hemispheres.

The patient recovered remarkably well after the surgery , seemingly no different from an average person.

The doctor performed routine post-operative tests, but something strange happened.

The patient's completely separated left and right brain hemispheres developed two independent consciousnesses , as if two different people were living in the same body.

For example, with the doctor's help, the two hemispheres could communicate with each other.

Even more amazingly, the two hemispheres could control the patient's hands, allowing them to do different things at the same time.

For example, in this experiment , the patient simultaneously drew a circle with his left hand.

In fact, there are more complicated experiments.

The left hand can draw a lion, and the right hand can draw an elephant at the same time . Just like the left and right fighting in martial arts novels,

. Just like the left and right fighting in martial arts novels, the patient's left and right hands may also fight each other.

For example, one hand opens the door , and the other hand actually closes the door.

One hand turns a book, and the other hand closes the book . What is going on?

. What is going on?

Are there really two consciousnesses in the human brain?

Neuroscientists have conducted research for 60 years.

It turns out that the workings of the human brain are far more complicated than we imagined.

To talk about this amazing research journey, we have to go back to the beginning . The time is back to the 1930s.

. The time is back to the 1930s.

Epilepsy was a very difficult disease to treat.

Epilepsy attacks are very painful.

The patient loses consciousness and has whole body convulsions.

If there is no one to take care of the patient, People are likely to hurt themselves.

Scientists have discovered that epilepsy is related to neurons in the brain.

The human brain has about 86 billion neurons.

These neurons communicate with each other by sending and receiving electrical impulses.

When a large number of neurons discharge at the same time, it is like a thunderstorm inside the brain.

This discharge can last from 30 seconds to two minutes.

Because the brain cannot cope with this large-scale discharge process , epilepsy occurs.

In the late 1930s , a strange incident attracted the attention of medical experts.

Some patients had a history of epilepsy , but later developed a tumor in the corpus callosum in the brain, and the epilepsy disappeared.

The corpus callosum is located in the center of the cerebral hemisphere. It is

one of the largest nerve fiber bundles in the brain and the information exchange between the left and right hemispheres.

A tumor in the corpus callosum , the bridge of the brain , actually blocks the connection between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Medical scientists speculated that if the corpus callosum was cut open, the brain would be divided in two , cutting off the global brain storm.

Could this be used to treat epilepsy?

This was a very avant-garde and groundbreaking idea.

However, the brain is such a delicate organ.

What effect would cutting open the corpus callosum have on the brain?

In 1940, Dr. William Van Wagner of the University of Rochester Medical Center in the United States decided to perform a corpus callosotomy.

Some patients with extremely severe epilepsy were so exhausted that they would rather die than live when they had the disease.

Although everyone knew that the operation was very dangerous patients were very eager to try it.

Van Wagner treated a total of 26 patients with severe epilepsy. No one could have

epilepsy. No one could have predicted the unexpectedly good results of the surgery. These patients

experienced a significant decrease in the number of epileptic seizures, and most never had epilepsy again.

This proved that the scientists' theory was correct.

Separating the left and right hemispheres did indeed block neural discharges in the brain.

So, did the patients' cognition change?

Medical researchers followed these patients for twenty years and found that the patients did very well after surgery, without any significant cognitive changes.

Separating the left and right hemispheres did not seem to bring about any changes.

This was indeed a happy outcome , but these medical reports piqued the curiosity of another scientist.

There must be some difference when a whole brain is cut in half. Otherwise, why

not just grow the brain in two?

Why? Nature

wants to connect the left and right hemispheres.

There must be some secrets we don't know about.

In 1952, American neurobiologist Roger Sperry decided to gain a deeper understanding of the brain's mechanisms. First, he used experiments to observe the role of the corpus callosum . He found a group of experimental cats,

. He found a group of experimental cats, surgically cut open the cats' corpus callosum , and then covered the cats' left eyes.

Because the right eye is connected to the left hemisphere of the brain, it is equivalent to the cat thinking with the left brain.

Then Sperry taught the cats to recognize triangles and squares.

Then Sperry covered the cats' right eyes and released the left eyes.

Now the cats are thinking with their right brain.

When he asked the cats to distinguish between triangles and squares, they were dumbfounded and had no idea how to solve the problem.

This shows that the cats' left brain can recognize triangles and squares, but their right brain cannot . It seems that after the cutting, the cats can recognize triangles and squares . The left and right hemispheres

. The left and right hemispheres behind the corpus callosum of cats are indeed disconnected.

Scientists subsequently conducted experiments on monkeys and obtained the same results.

Roger Sperry also discovered that the left and right hemispheres of the brain seemed to have different divisions of labor in visual perception and motor control: the left hemisphere controls movement on the right side of the body, while the right hemisphere controls movement on the left side.

This cross-control is called motor neuron crossing.

Roger Sperry's split-brain experiment on animals shocked the medical community, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for this remarkable research.

However, even so, human understanding of the brain is still very superficial.

The task of further unraveling the mystery of the brain fell to Sperry's students . In 1962,

. In 1962, Sperry's graduate student Michael Gazzaniga entered the California Institute of Technology.

He was only 23 years old when Sperry asked Gazzaniga to record the cases of split -brain patients.

At first, Gazzaniga had no idea where to start.

Until one day, a routine test completely shocked Gazzaniga.

Thus began the longest and most incredible brain experiment in human history . The patient codenamed W.J.,

. The patient codenamed W.J.,

we will simply call him Lao Wang.

Before we officially look at this experiment, we need to give a simple explanation.

Patient Lao Wang had undergone split-brain surgery.

He had been with Gazzaniga for more than 40 years of research.

He was one of Gazzaniga's most loyal and respectable patients, and he had devoted almost his entire life to brain science research.

The experiment process was like this: draw a small dot in the middle of the screen.

The split-brain patient was asked to focus both eyes on this small dot.

The left side of his eye could only see the left side of the screen , and the right side of his eye could only see the right side.

The following video was filmed in the 1990s.

Both people in the video have aged, but the experiment is similar to the one they did in 1962 , except that the computer equipment is more advanced.

At this time, the English word "car" appeared on the right screen.

The patient was asked what the word was.

The patient said it was "car".

We talked about how the signal seen by the right eye will be transmitted to the left brain , which shows that the left brain can distinguish the English word "car".

Then came the most exciting part.

An image of a hacksaw appeared on the left side of the screen.

The patient was asked what it was.

The patient said he didn't know.

The image seen by the left eye was transmitted to the right brain.

Is it the right brain that's thinking ? Could it be that the right brain doesn't see?

? Could it be that the right brain doesn't see?

Gazzaniga asked the patient to draw what the left eye saw.

The patient drew a hacksaw on the paper, which showed that the right brain not only saw the saw, but also knew the image of the saw and could draw it.

But for some reason, the right brain couldn't express it in words. Gazzaniga was shocked.

This was the first time that humans discovered that only the left hemisphere of the brain could express the information of the picture in words.

In his autobiography, Gazzaniga said that at the time he could hardly control his emotions.

It was a wonderful feeling of discovering a new world.

In the following years, Gazzaniga discovered more differences between the left and right brains.

Most people's language processing is mainly handled by the left hemisphere, which is called left-side dominance in brain neuroscience.

95% of right-handed people and 70-95% of right-handed people do. Left-handed people

show left-brain dominance in language processing , which means that only about 6.5% of humans use the right brain to process language. The left hemisphere of the brain tends to process details and local information , focusing on the specific details of the task, while the right brain focuses on spatial perception, melody, rhythm, and emotion.

The secrets of the human brain are being revealed bit by bit.

In 1963, Gazzaniga came up with a new method to test the functions of the left and right hemispheres, called the "Cos Block Test."

The so-called Cos Blocks are some square blocks with different colors on the six sides.

The patient is asked to arrange the blocks according to the pattern on the card.

The patient being tested is still Lao Wang.

At the beginning, the patient is asked to arrange the blocks with his left hand.

The patient's right brain controls his left hand because the right brain is responsible for the execution of visual motor functions.

Therefore, Lao Wang quickly completed the task with his left hand.

The next test requires the patient to arrange the blocks with his right hand.

Something strange happened .

The patient's right hand The blocks can never be properly arranged, which shows that the human left brain is unable to handle movement and positioning.

When the right hand is repeatedly defeated, please pay attention to this shot.

The left hand can't help but want to help because the left hand always helps out of control.

Gazzaniga can only ask Lao Wang to press his left hand under his thigh.

But no matter how long, the right hand can't complete the task.

The second test is over, and now we come to the third test.

Both hands complete the task together.

A new understanding of split brain was born from this test.

This is a terrifying video.

Please pay attention to it.

Because the left hand can easily complete the task , the left hand is working in an orderly manner.

At this time, what is the right hand doing?

The right hand actually starts to mess up.

The right hand is messing around like a headless fly.

It just doesn't let the left hand complete the task well.

When the left hand completes the task, the right hand actually starts to sabotage.

Please watch this picture again.

It's really amazing. It

looks like there are two independent cognitions. Gazzaniga

couldn't believe his eyes.

What was going on?

He then tested many more patients and found that some were even more incredible.

For example, one hand opened the door and the other hand closed it.

One hand turned a book, and the other hand closed it.

Even more annoying, one hand paid for money and the other hand snatched it back.

Neurologists believed that this was a diagnostic movement disorder.

Later, Gazzaniga named this phenomenon "alien hand syndrome."

Alien hand syndrome seemed to reveal a new problem.

The two hemispheres of the brain have different consciousnesses.

There are actually two people in our brain.

We are all schizophrenic people.

By the late 1970s, the neurological community had fully accepted the idea of ​​the left and right brain being independent . The public was also very interested

. The public was also very interested in the brain being divided into two parts.

The left brain can speak, and the right brain controls movement . The story of two people living

. The story of two people living together became a hot topic , but the next experiment once again challenged people's understanding.

The subject was named V.P., or Xiaowei for short

V.P., or Xiaowei for short . Xiaowei was also a split-brain patient.

. Xiaowei was also a split-brain patient.

Let's take a look at an example.

Two words were typed on the screen: the left word was "applause," and the right word was "laugh."

Xiaowei was immediately confused.

Her left and right brains prompted her to perform two separate actions : she wanted to laugh and applaud at the same time, but she didn't know what to do.

This showed that her left and right brains had no neural connections and were completely separate.

Next, Gazzaniga flashed an image of a woman making a phone call on the left side of the screen.

Based on what we already knew, the left image entered Xiaowei's right brain.

Since the right brain lacks language, Xiaowei couldn't say what the image was.

But the reality was that Xiaowei replied, "I saw a woman."

How could this happen?

How could the right brain speak?

In previous tests, Xiaowei's right brain hadn't spoken, suggesting that the right brain also has the ability to learn.

A few years after the split-brain surgery, the right brain had actually learned to speak.

This was another new discovery , but the story wasn't quite that simple.

The image clearly showed a woman making a phone call.

No matter how Gazzaniga asked Xiaowei, she couldn't say the word "phone call."

This showed that although the right brain had learned to speak , it could only say Even the right brain couldn't describe complex things with very simple words.

Under Gazzaniga's questioning, Xiaowei uttered a very strange word: " skipping rope." Gazzaniga asked Xiaowei to use her left hand

rope." Gazzaniga asked Xiaowei to use her left hand to describe what she saw.

Xiaowei wrote the word "telephone" on a piece of paper and then asked her to look at the word on the paper.

At this time, her left brain, which could speak, stepped in.

Xiaowei was a little confused , but still read it out : "telephone.

" How did making a phone call become skipping rope?

This is another secret deep in the brain that has never been known to the world.

It took Gazzaniga several years to understand the meaning behind skipping rope .

The picture on the left side passed through the left area of ​​the eyes and entered Xiaowei's right brain.

Because Xiaowei's right brain had developed simple speech , Xiaowei knew there was a woman in the picture , but her right brain couldn't understand "telephone."

However, her right brain knew that the woman was doing something through a line.

When Xiaowei said "woman," her clueless left brain understood that there was a woman in the picture , but she had no idea what she was doing . At this time, the left brain became anxious

. At this time, the left brain became anxious , not satisfied. What to do with our current state of ignorance ? Will it guess

? Will it guess lie make up excuses, and search for causes and consequences?

The left brain sensed something linear through a channel we still don't understand, so it thought there might be a jump rope, and so it came up with the word "jump rope."

Gazzaniga considered this experiment the most astounding result of his split-brain research.

It turns out that the right brain is our subconscious , completely faithful to the facts , so it will meticulously reproduce the pictures presented to it.

The left brain is a refinement and synthesis of the real world.

It can use any information at hand to seek cause and effect, self-sufficient, establish order , and generate a reasonable story . This research

. This research led Gazzaniga to his most intriguing theory, called the Interpreter Theory.

It was the first time humans intuitively discovered that the brain has the ability to tell stories.

Stories are a powerful tool for conveying information, experience, and culture.

The brain's storytelling ability is of great significance to human evolution.

Storytelling involves processing abstract concepts, emotions, and complex plots, and contributes to the development of human cognitive abilities.

Stories often involve conflict and decision-making, which helps cultivate problem-solving skills.

Apart from humans, we have not yet discovered that any other animal has the ability to tell stories.

The Interpreter Theory is indeed a major discovery about human self-cognition.

So far, all research seems to point to the existence of two different consciousnesses in the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

People seem to have two different personalities.

However, the next breakthrough in brain research completely overturned all previous research.

Time entered the 21st century, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology appeared.

This technological leap provided a new way to track information in neural bundles.

MRI can observe the process of information transfer from one active brain area to another . Based on this,

. Based on this, research in the field of neuroimaging began to develop rapidly.

It was at this time that Gazzaniga and his student Fennell discovered a strange case.

There was a patient named J.W.,

whom we will call Dajin.

During a test Fennell suddenly had the idea to have Dajin discern the same geometric shape, but with different orientations.

Surprisingly, Dajin's left brain couldn't discern the shape's orientation at all , while his right brain could clearly discern it.

This suggested that there was an area in Dajin's right brain specifically dedicated to discerning object orientation.

With the help of MRI, they quickly located this area in the right brain, the rotationally invariant module.

They subsequently discovered numerous other areas with distinct functions, such as those responsible for object classification, spelling naming , and association.

This suggests that the brain isn't comprised of just two major parts , but rather is composed of numerous smaller modules.

Gazzaniga believed that the human brain contains at least dozens of different modules.

Why isn't the brain divided into two parts , but rather a vast array of modules?

Gazzaniga realized this was related to the brain's efficiency.

The brain has approximately 86 billion neurons.

If any two neurons were connected, the distance would reach a staggering 20 kilometers, requiring a massive brain. A larger brain would bring a host of problems, such as the need for neuronal axons to extend significantly, slowing brain processing speed and leading to disordered movement and slower and more inefficient thinking .

Such a massive brain demands a frighteningly high amount of energy, even for humans. To maintain a large brain

humans. To maintain a large brain , the brain eats constantly all day long.

Therefore, during the evolutionary process, the brain chose another mechanism modularization.

Because not every neuron is connected to every other neuron, the proportion of neuronal connections eventually decreases, forming large neuronal groups, which are called modules.

The advantage of modularization is that dozens of neural networks operate independently, which increases the brain's fault tolerance.

It not only effectively reduces the dependence between networks , but also greatly improves the stability of each network.

How does the brain really work?

Gazzaniga gave an example.

The famous conductor Leonard Bernstein once conducted Haydn's 88th Symphony.

It was a very magical performance experience.

After the orchestra began to play, Bernstein stopped conducting and did not even move his hands.

All he did was respond to the orchestra's performance with his expression, providing positive feedback to the musicians.

It's like the brain.

Each musician is a brain module.

They start in an orderly manner and perform their respective functions precisely.

As the center, Bernstein just nodded, immersed in the harmonious and smooth performance.

There are no two people in the brain , nor a general conductor.

Instead, there are dozens of professionals with different skills.

They divide the work and cooperate to complete all the functions of the brain.

This is a truly incredible operation process.

Since the language function of the left hemisphere was first discovered in 1962, Gazzaniga explored the brain for sixty years until he discovered the multi-module structure of the brain . What have we learned from these 60 years of split-brain research ? The most crucial thing is that the operation of the brain

? The most crucial thing is that the operation of the brain is not a linear relationship . From A, B can be deduced,

. From A, B can be deduced, and B is a complete description of A.

The brain does not work like this.

In fact, the basic strategy of the brain is to decompose and simplify tasks into tasks that can be solved by a single module.

This process is automatic and nonlinear, and is not directly regulated by the cognitive control system.

In the research of cognitive neuroscientists represented by Gazzaniga, people have figured out the functions of many brain modules , which is also one of the basic theories of brain-computer interfaces today. Now

that humans already know the functions of modules, can we create these modules and form a super brain? Where will

this super brain lead humans ? Will humans create super AI first

? Will humans create super AI first or a super brain first?

The amazing story of split-brain may have just begun . Well, today's story is shared here.

. Well, today's story is shared here.

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We will talk about it in the next episode.