Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience

A brief review of neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga's memoir

Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience by Michael Gazzaniga is a memoir that recounts the author's personal and professional journey in the field of cognitive neuroscience, especially his groundbreaking work on split-brain patients. Split-brain patients are people who have had their corpus callosum, the bundle of nerve fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, severed to treat severe epilepsy. Gazzaniga and his colleagues discovered that the two hemispheres of the brain can function independently and have different abilities, personalities, and modes of processing information. For example, they found that the left hemisphere is dominant for language, logic, and analytical thinking, while the right hemisphere is better at spatial reasoning, creativity, and holistic thinking. They also found that the hemispheres can have conflicting beliefs, preferences, and emotions, such as when a patient's left hand would undo what his right hand had done, or when a p…