History of the Split-Brain

Some of the very first research done on this topic was done by Konstantin Michaelovich Bykov in the early 1900’s in Pavlov’s research lab in Russia. What he discovered was that the corpus callosum had a very important role in the transfer of learned information from one hemisphere to another. The very first human split-brain cases were reported back in 1940 by Van Wagenen and Herren. These subjects had their corpus callosum severed to prevent the transference of epileptic seizures from one hemisphere to another. This procedure was incredibly successful and it also allowed doctors of that time to study these patients to find out the function of the corpus callosum. Even though these men were the first ones to operate on humans, it was not to study the split-brain phenomenon. Some of the first actual studies performed to study the split-brain itself were done by Sperry and his colleagues from 1953 to 1980. Most of their research was done on Monkeys and cats and they later went on to study humans. During their studies they showed how the corpus callosum played an important role in inter-hemispheric communication. As well, they discovered a lot about what we know about hemispheric specialization. Later in 1981 Sperry received the Nobel Prize for his research that was conducted in the 1950’s and 60’s (Code, et. al., 1996).

Roger W. Sperry

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