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TagLeft brain vs. right brain concept

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The Left and Right Brain Both Want Pop Science Media to Chill

Neuroscience is not an especially rewarding field for the pursuit of dogma

A staple of coffee room chatter has been left brain vs. right brain thinking. You know, “He’s one of those left-brain types; he’d fire us all to save money!” Or, “She’s really a right-brain kind of person so if something looks beautiful, she probably isn’t thinking about what would happen if…” Left brain, right brain. It’s one of those complex cultural concepts that starts in conventional science fact, explodes into pop psychology chatter, and then settles into a small, murky world that can only be navigated by serious thinking. First, vertebrates generally have brains divided into two lobes, an arrangement that may go back half a billion years. The right hemisphere usually controls the left side of the body and Read More ›

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Left and Right Human Brain Anatomy Illustration. 3D rendering

Study: Loss of Half the Brain Doesn’t Mean No Word, Face Contact

Researchers astounded: Contrary to theory, in a recent study, the single remaining brain hemisphere supported both word and face reading functions

Some children have half of their brains removed (hemispherectomy) to control massive seizures that would otherwise destroy the child’s whole brain. Specialists were surprised that the children functioned fairly normally — certainly compared to what would have been expected. A recent study of post-hemispherectomy patients has provided dramatic evidence of rewiring: An unprecedented study of brain plasticity and visual perception found that people who, as children, had undergone surgery removing half of their brain correctly recognized differences between pairs of words or faces more than 80% of the time. Considering the volume of removed brain tissue, the surprising accuracy highlights the brain’s capacity — and its limitations — to rewire itself and adapt to dramatic surgery or traumatic injury. The Read More ›

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The War of Logic vs Creativity

Are You Left-Brained? Right-Brained? That’s Nice. Now Forget It.

The rise and fall of a really Cool myth about the brain

If you have a few minutes waiting in line, you can try various tests on the internet to help you “figure out the huge dilemma”: Are you left- or right-brained? Or, at least, “Which side of your brain is more dominant?” (in 30 seconds). Buzzfeed, more elaborately, offers a Triangle Test to reveal the dominant side. This stuff is fun (maybe). But should we take it seriously? No. Many of us have heard one version or another of the pop psych myth that the brain functions as two separate departments, logic (left) vs. creativity (right). The myth carries conversations and sells workshops, books and TV shows. In reality, the brain’s two hemispheres work together for most jobs, the degree of Read More ›