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Memory in split-brain patients: a comparison with organic amnesic syndromes.

Acquisition of pictorial information and its retention over a one week retention interval were examined in 3 split-brain patients using the titration procedure developed by Huppert and Piercy (1978, 1979). Split-brain patients were found to have a normal ability to retain information once learnt. However, two of the patients required longer than normal presentation rates to reach the desired level of learning, suggesting the presence of an acquisition defect. In contrast, the youngest patient (L.B.) showed normal acquisition as well as normal retention. These findings are compared with those obtained for two classes of amnesic patients, i.e. Korsakoff patients and H.M., who show functionally different forms of organic amnesia. The results suggest that inter-hemispheric co-operation is relatively unimportant for normal retention although co-operation may be necessary for normal learning. The possibility of recovery of memory following commissurotomy is raised.

Adult↗

Conditioned changes in ultrasonic vocalizations to an aversive olfactory stimulus are lateralized in 6-day-old rats.

Using a soft rubber plug to block airflow in one naris, Kucharski, Johanson, and Hall (1986) found that some forms of olfactory memory (e.g., odor preferences) were lateralized in young rats while other forms (e.g., conditioned activation and mouthing) were not. The present experiments extended that research by showing that conditioned increases in ultrasonic vocalizations were also lateralized. That is, when exposed to an odor that was previously paired with footshock, 6-day-old rats significantly increased their rate of vocalizing. This response only occurred, however, when the naris open at training was also open at test. The use of the developing rat as a natural split-brain preparation appears to be an effective procedure with which to broaden current approaches to the analysis of learning, memory, and emotion.

Age Factors↗

Split-brain rat: transfer and interference of kindled amygdala convulsions.

Rats were subjected to varying degrees of commissurotomy, followed by implantation of a bipolar electrode into each amygdala. After the kindling of six convulsions at one electrode (primary site), the procedure was applied to the contralateral amygdala (secondary site). Convulsions were observed to develop more rapidly, independent of the degree or kind of transection. After 6 secondary site convulsions, the primary site was re-tested and convulsion-triggering was blocked, except in animals with transection of the rostral portion of the corpus callosum (CC). Collectively, the data indicate: (i) amygdala kindling develops a lasting trace which operates through the midbrain or brainstem; (ii) kindling from a second site utilizes this trace; (iii) a series of 6 convulsions produces negative after-effect which manifests itself at the convulsion level via the anterior CC; (iv) the anterior CC is important in determining the laterality of the forelimb clonus; and (v) the inter-amygdala propagation of after-discharge is blocked by the combined sectioning of the anterior CC and the anterior commissure.

Amygdala↗

One or two: an examination of the recent case of the conjoined twins from Malta.

The article questions the assumption that conjoined twins are necessarily two people or persons by employing arguments based on different points of view: non-personal vitalism, the person as a sentient being, the person as an agent, the person as a locus of narrative and valuation, and the person as an embodied mind. Analogies employed from the cases of amputation, multiple personality disorder, abortion, split-brain patients and cloning. The article further questions the assumption that a conjoined twin's natural interest and wish is separation. I first contend that separation is such a radical procedure as to render the post-separation person different from the pre-separation one. Therefore, it is not possible to benefit the pre-separation twin by the act of separation. The article concludes with a critical evaluation of the tendency in bioethics to regard ethical challenges as rivalry between individuals competing for scarce resources.

Abortion, Induced↗

Duplex perception: some initial findings concerning its neural basis.

Duplex perception is the simultaneous perception of a speech syllable and of a nonspeech "chirp," and occurs when a single formant transition and the remainder (the "base") of a synthetic syllable are presented to different ears. The current study found a slight but nonsignificant advantage for correct labeling of the fused syllable when the chirp was presented to the left ear. This advantage was amplified in the performance of a "split-brain" subject. A subject with a left pontine lesion performed at chance level when the chirp was presented to her left ear. These findings suggest that some, if not complete, ipsilateral suppression does occur in the dichotic fusion procedure, and that identification of the fused syllable is maximal when the left hemisphere fully processes the linguistic characteristics of the base (through contralateral presentation), and at least minimally processes the frequency transition information of the chirp (through ipsilateral presentation).

Adult↗

Hemispheric differences in serial reversal learning: a study with commissurotomy patients.

A serial reversal learning task involving tactile-proprioceptive discrimination and manual responses was presented alternately to the left and the right hemisphere of four "split-brain" patients. In each trial, one of two rods that differed in both diameter and surface texture was placed in the patient's hand out of view. The patient was trained to match it to samples according to either size or texture and non-verbal audio visual feedback was used to signal the correctness of each response. After reaching five consecutively correct responses, the feature to be matched was switched. When the patient again made five consecutively correct responses, the feature to be matched was reversed back. This procedure was repeated until the end of a 200-trial training run. The two hemispheres learned equally readily on the first learning task. The right hemisphere had much greater difficulty in learning the reversals than the left hemisphere and this was not attributable to a strong tendency to stay with a previously correct match. Learning with the left hemisphere showed relatively stable performance across successive reversals, whereas that with the right hemisphere showed high lability. Control trials showed that the hemispheres were equally competent in making the basic tactile-proprioceptive discriminations. Comparisons with the findings on (a) three control patients and (b) training with unrestricted visual input showed that learning with two hemispheres was easier than learning with either one alone; performance regulated by both hemispheres was also more stable.

Adult↗

An investigation of the line motion effect in a callosotomy patient.

When a line is flashed instantaneously between two markers it can appear to propagate from one marker to the other. This illusion is known as the line motion effect. We investigated this effect in the two hemispheres of a callosotomy ("split-brain") patient. We found that both hemispheres perceived the line motion effect, and that flashing one of the markers biased the direction of motion away from that marker regardless of which hemisphere received the stimulus. In contrast, matching the width of the line to the width of one of the markers biased the direction of motion away from the marker only when it appeared in the left visual hemifield. This suggests that multiple mechanisms can contribute to the line motion effect, and that some of these mechanisms rely on different neural structures.

Corpus Callosum↗

Failure to remap visuotactile space across the midline in the split-brain.

We examined the effect of posture change on the representation of visuotactile space in a split-brain patient using a cross-modal congruency task. Split-brain patient J.W. made speeded elevation discrimination responses (up versus down) to a series of tactile targets presented to the index finger or thumb of his right hand. We report congruency effects elicited by irrelevant visual distractors placed either close to, or far from, the stimulated hand. These cross-modal congruency effects followed the right hand as it moved within the right hemispace, but failed to do so when the hand crossed the midline into left hemispace. These results support recent claims that interhemispheric connections are required to maintain an accurate representation of visuotactile space.

Attention↗

Interhemispheric comparisons in a man with complete forebrain commissurotomy.

J. Sergent (1991) claimed that split-brained people are highly accurate in judging which is the larger of 2 circles in opposite visual hemifields but are relatively poor at judging whether circles in the 2 hemifields are of the same size. The discrepancy could be due, at least in part, to an artifact. A split-brained man, L.B., was markedly worse than normals at judging which was the larger of 2 circles or the longer of 2 horizontal lines in opposite hemifields, and his performance could be largely accounted for without assuming any interhemispheric transfer. L.B. also judged whether a single flashed line extended further into the left or right hemifield and, as in a previous study (M. C. Corballis, 1995), was strongly biased to respond "right longer." This bias was not observed in the judgments about the circles or the separated lines, suggesting that it is not due to a compression of perceived space in the left hemifield.

Adult↗