By William J. Cromie Gazette Staff
Andy had been cruelly bullied as a child. In his teen years, he suffered
from epileptic convulsions and underwent an operation that severed the
thick band of nerves connecting the right and left halves of his brain.
Recently, researchers tested the responses of both sides of his brain to
memories of being taunted 30 years before.
The left side reported that it was not at all upset when he thought
about it. His right brain, however, indicated that Andy (not his real
name) remained extremely angry and bitter.
The researchers tested a second so-called split-brain person and found
the same kind of disagreement between the two halves, or hemispheres, of
the brain.
"This study indicates that each hemisphere has its own mind; each is
capable of different perceptions, motivations, and feelings," declares
Fredric Schiffer, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and its
affiliate, McLean Hospital. "Each mind seems to differ in sensitivity to
past trauma, level of maturity, attitudes, and emotions."
What is more, he says, this idea is consistent with evidence that people
who never undergo split-brain surgery have two minds in their heads.
"It's not unlike the different relationships you find between a couple,"
according to Schiffer. "One side of the brain can dominate or sabotage
the other, or they can cooperate. The relationship can be destructive or
productive."
Schiffer undertook the split-brain research to increase understanding of
how an intact brain works and how unhealthy relationships between its
minds can be successfully treated.
Mixed Opinions of Themselves
In the 1960s, surgeons commonly did split-brain operations to relieve
intractable seizures caused by epilepsy. One patient used in the
dual-mind experiment, for example, suffered a major seizure every week
for a year preceding his surgery. Such operations are no longer done, so
people who underwent them represent a rare source of knowledge about how
the human brain works.
With the help of Eran Zaidel of the University of California at Los
Angeles and Joseph Bogen of the University of Southern California,
Schiffer located and tested two middle-aged male split-brain patients.
Whether a brain is split or intact, its left side controls the right
hand and the right side the left hand. The two subjects sat in front of
two sets of five pegs, one set in front of each hand. Researchers could
ask a question of one side of the brain or the other, then check the
response of the corresponding hand. By using a split screen in front of
the pegs, they could even direct different questions to different sides
of the brain at the same time.
The experimenters arranged the pegs such that, from left to right, they
signified "none," "mild," "moderate," "quite-a-bit," and "extremely."
For example, the left brain of one patient, call him Larry, thinks of
himself as more hopeless, lonely, sad, and unhappy than his right brain.
His right hemisphere declares he is "quite-a-bit" friendly and
important. But his left hemisphere gives him a "none" for both
characteristics and it rates him as "quite-a-bit" evil and "extremely"
disrespected.
Some epileptics with partial surgical separation of their brain halves
were studied at Harvard by David Bear and Paul Fedio in 1977. These
patients all had a left hemisphere with diminished self-esteem. Their
right hemispheres, on the other head, inflated their self-image, giving
them a higher opinion of themselves than friends and relatives gave
them.
Schiffer says such findings are consistent with those found in ordinary
people, that is, those whose brains are intact. He believes this
independence of minds can play an important role in understanding and
treating behavioral problems. If, as in Andy's case, one mind is less
mature and more disturbed by past trauma than the other, that may lead
to feelings of anxiety and depression, or to self-destructive behaviors
such as drug addiction.
Glasses Change Emotions
Working at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Schiffer has developed a way to
change troubled feelings with special eyeglasses. The glasses completely
mask one eye and cover most of the other. To access the right brain, a
person wears a pair with only the extreme left side of the left eye
exposed, and vice versa.
As an example, many people who suffer the lingering effects of past
trauma feel more fearful if they look out the extreme right side (left
brain). When they switch to viewing the extreme left side (right brain),
they feel more in control immediately.
"Both minds remember the trauma, but one side is less distressed by it,"
Schiffer comments.
Schiffer tested 70 people with intact brains. Sixty percent of them
experienced different emotions when looking at the world with different
sides of the brain. Thirty percent reported a marked difference. "Some
patients refer to the discrepancies as 'mind-boggling discrepancy,' " he
says.
"There may be a troubled mind in one hemisphere while the other one
feels quite good," Schiffer continues. "In treatment, I try to teach
people to recognize and talk to the troubled side. In time, that side
can learn to be less anxious or fearful, to feel safe and valuable.
"This kind of result is much more effective than my telling a person: 'I
like you; you're important, and you should not be fearful.' The
experience stays with someone longer when he or she puts on the glasses
and reaches his or her own conclusion about being a nice person, a
valuable person."
Schiffer does not claim he can cure all emotional ills with
weird-looking glasses. "They don't work for all people," he says. "And
changing a troubled mind is hard to do even with their help."
Schiffer discusses the theory and practice of bringing two minds into
harmony in his new book, Of Two Minds, published by the Free Press.
Copyright 1998 President and Fellows of Harvard College
*****************
Wade T. Smith
morbius@channel1.com | "There ain't nothin' you
wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
******* http://www.channel1.com/users/morbius/ *******