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05/11/2005

Mixed Messages

There are two sides to every question. This often quoted refrain
came to mind recently when I saw a picture of a two-headed
turtle. I’ve forgotten where I saw the photo but believe it was of
a turtle that was born in the UK last year. The accompanying
news item said that the two heads operated independently but
that the right one was dominant. Sometimes the left head would
be nibbling away at some delicacy and the right head would see a
tasty tidbit elsewhere. Being dominant, the right head would
move the body of the turtle towards the new food source, leaving
the other head nibbling on nothing. There are certainly two sides
to this creature!

I suppose that the closest human analogy would be conjoined
Siamese twins who have to resolve differences amicably
throughout their lives. Thanks to modern medicine and
remarkably skilled surgeons, a much more pleasant outcome is
possible. I read recently that those twins conjoined at the head
are doing well after their separation in a succession of operations
at a hospital in New York last year.

In the two-headed turtle, two separate brains in two separate
heads control the actions of a single body. We only have one
brain, but could it be that in that one brain we have two separate
minds? This possibility is the subject of an article, “Of Two
Minds”, by Jim Holt in last Sunday’s April 8 New York Times
Magazine section. After reading the article I decided I needed to
know a bit more about the brain’s structure so it was off to my
1962 World Book Encyclopedia. (I figured that the anatomy of
the brain hasn’t changed much since 1962, even though our
understanding has grown immensely.)

Let’s concentrate on the cerebrum, which makes up about 85
percent of the brain’s weight and is the seat of our intelligence.
The cerebrum is divided into two halves, sort of like a shelled
walnut. These two halves of the cerebrum are connected by the
corpus callosum, a bundle of nerve fibers that serves as the
communications link. Another important feature is the cerebral
cortex, a carpet of nerve cells covering the cerebrum. The
cerebral cortex contains the so-called sensorimotor regions that
send the signals to arms, legs, facial muscles, etc. to do their
thing. Incoming sensory messages such as taste, touch, muscle
movement etc. also come into the cerebral cortex.

An important feature is that these incoming and outgoing
messages cross over in the brain stem and spinal cord. This is
why the right hemisphere controls movements of the left side of
the body and the left hemisphere controls movements on the
right side. Typically, the left half of the cerebrum is the
dominant half, accounting for the fact that the majority of people
are right-handed. With two halves of the cerebrum operating on
different parts of the body, it seems rather important that one half
knows what the other half has in mind. Simply clapping one’s
hands at the end of a stirring musical performance requires that
the two halves send the proper messages to the respective arms
and hands. Otherwise, the clapping hands might miss each other
entiely!

Normally, the two halves are in touch with each other through
the corpus callosum and any disputes are settled amicably
without our even being aware of the disagreement. However, the
Times article cites examples in which patients suffering from
severe cases of epilepsy were subjected to operations in which
the corpus colossum was severed, cutting off the communication
between the two halves of the brain. This operation, no longer in
vogue, was thought to avoid the spread of the epileptic seizures
from one side of the brain to the other.

Patients having this operation generally seemed normal but under
certain conditions were quite abnormal. For example, one
patient was shown the word “hat” on a screen limited to the
patient’s left half of his visual field. When his left hand picked
the hat out of a group of different objects, he maintained that he
hadn’t seen the word. The same patient, when shown a picture
of a nude woman in just one half of his visual field, would smile
or even blush but at the same time wasn’t able to identify what it
was that caused his reaction. The two halves of the brain weren’t
communicating without the connecting nerve fibers.

Under normal circumstances, with the visual experience not
restricted to just half the normal visual field, the patient was
normal. One half of the cerebrum takes over and the other stays
quiet; everything seems normal. However, the experiments on
these “split-brain” patients raised the question as to whether we
may indeed have two minds in our one brain, with the corpus
callosum acting as the critical link.

What if we could read the mind? Magicians do it all the time but
we know they use tricks to accomplish the feat. The Times
article also mentioned work published in the May issue of Nature
Neuroscience in which a form of MRI, magnetic resonance
imaging, was used to read minds. Well, it was at least a step in
that direction. I visited the Scientific American and the World
Science Web sites to flesh out the details of these mind reading
experiments. There were two studies that were reported.

Yukiyasu Kamitani of ATR Computational Neuroscience
Laboratories in Japan collaborated with Frank Tong at Princeton
(he’s now at Vanderbilt University) in experiments in which
patterns of stripes oriented in different directions were shown to
the subjects. There were 8 different patterns of stripes. MRI
brain scans were made while the subjects gazed at a particular
pattern. There were slight differences in the brain scan patterns
as the subjects gazed at the different stripe patterns. A computer
program was written that could detect and tell the differences
among the patterns. Using the program and MRI brain scans, the
researchers correctly identified which patterns the subjects were
looking at.

The real mind reading came about when the researchers showed
the subject a “plaid” pattern consisting of two sets of stripes
simultaneously. The subject was told to ignore one of the
patterns and concentrate on the other. Sure enough, the
researchers could correctly identify that pattern from the brain
scans. Basic mind reading 101!

The other work was performed by John-Dylan Haynes and
Geraint Rees at University College London. They used the same
MRI brain scan approach, but with a twist. They showed the
subjects two images in succession. However, the first image was
flashed by so quickly that the subjects could only remember the
second one. Yet the MRI brain scan correctly identified the first
image even though the subject could not. This experiment must
tell us something about how fast our brain can detect something
and how slow it is in processing that information to our
consciousness.

On reading of this experiment, the thought occurred to me that
the advertisers who dream up commercials on TV may have
beaten these researchers to the punch. As I recall, some years
ago there was a fuss about flashing fleeting “subliminal” images
or messages within commercials. The idea was that the viewer
would subconsciously remember the images or messages and be
stimulated to buy the product. I assume that, to be successful,
the subliminal image would have to be considered by the brain to
be worth storing in memory long enough to prod me to buy the
product. Actually, it’s a bit frightening to think my brain would
take such action without me taking part in the decision.

Allen F. Bortrum



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-05/11/2005-      
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Dr. Bortrum

05/11/2005

Mixed Messages

There are two sides to every question. This often quoted refrain
came to mind recently when I saw a picture of a two-headed
turtle. I’ve forgotten where I saw the photo but believe it was of
a turtle that was born in the UK last year. The accompanying
news item said that the two heads operated independently but
that the right one was dominant. Sometimes the left head would
be nibbling away at some delicacy and the right head would see a
tasty tidbit elsewhere. Being dominant, the right head would
move the body of the turtle towards the new food source, leaving
the other head nibbling on nothing. There are certainly two sides
to this creature!

I suppose that the closest human analogy would be conjoined
Siamese twins who have to resolve differences amicably
throughout their lives. Thanks to modern medicine and
remarkably skilled surgeons, a much more pleasant outcome is
possible. I read recently that those twins conjoined at the head
are doing well after their separation in a succession of operations
at a hospital in New York last year.

In the two-headed turtle, two separate brains in two separate
heads control the actions of a single body. We only have one
brain, but could it be that in that one brain we have two separate
minds? This possibility is the subject of an article, “Of Two
Minds”, by Jim Holt in last Sunday’s April 8 New York Times
Magazine section. After reading the article I decided I needed to
know a bit more about the brain’s structure so it was off to my
1962 World Book Encyclopedia. (I figured that the anatomy of
the brain hasn’t changed much since 1962, even though our
understanding has grown immensely.)

Let’s concentrate on the cerebrum, which makes up about 85
percent of the brain’s weight and is the seat of our intelligence.
The cerebrum is divided into two halves, sort of like a shelled
walnut. These two halves of the cerebrum are connected by the
corpus callosum, a bundle of nerve fibers that serves as the
communications link. Another important feature is the cerebral
cortex, a carpet of nerve cells covering the cerebrum. The
cerebral cortex contains the so-called sensorimotor regions that
send the signals to arms, legs, facial muscles, etc. to do their
thing. Incoming sensory messages such as taste, touch, muscle
movement etc. also come into the cerebral cortex.

An important feature is that these incoming and outgoing
messages cross over in the brain stem and spinal cord. This is
why the right hemisphere controls movements of the left side of
the body and the left hemisphere controls movements on the
right side. Typically, the left half of the cerebrum is the
dominant half, accounting for the fact that the majority of people
are right-handed. With two halves of the cerebrum operating on
different parts of the body, it seems rather important that one half
knows what the other half has in mind. Simply clapping one’s
hands at the end of a stirring musical performance requires that
the two halves send the proper messages to the respective arms
and hands. Otherwise, the clapping hands might miss each other
entiely!

Normally, the two halves are in touch with each other through
the corpus callosum and any disputes are settled amicably
without our even being aware of the disagreement. However, the
Times article cites examples in which patients suffering from
severe cases of epilepsy were subjected to operations in which
the corpus colossum was severed, cutting off the communication
between the two halves of the brain. This operation, no longer in
vogue, was thought to avoid the spread of the epileptic seizures
from one side of the brain to the other.

Patients having this operation generally seemed normal but under
certain conditions were quite abnormal. For example, one
patient was shown the word “hat” on a screen limited to the
patient’s left half of his visual field. When his left hand picked
the hat out of a group of different objects, he maintained that he
hadn’t seen the word. The same patient, when shown a picture
of a nude woman in just one half of his visual field, would smile
or even blush but at the same time wasn’t able to identify what it
was that caused his reaction. The two halves of the brain weren’t
communicating without the connecting nerve fibers.

Under normal circumstances, with the visual experience not
restricted to just half the normal visual field, the patient was
normal. One half of the cerebrum takes over and the other stays
quiet; everything seems normal. However, the experiments on
these “split-brain” patients raised the question as to whether we
may indeed have two minds in our one brain, with the corpus
callosum acting as the critical link.

What if we could read the mind? Magicians do it all the time but
we know they use tricks to accomplish the feat. The Times
article also mentioned work published in the May issue of Nature
Neuroscience in which a form of MRI, magnetic resonance
imaging, was used to read minds. Well, it was at least a step in
that direction. I visited the Scientific American and the World
Science Web sites to flesh out the details of these mind reading
experiments. There were two studies that were reported.

Yukiyasu Kamitani of ATR Computational Neuroscience
Laboratories in Japan collaborated with Frank Tong at Princeton
(he’s now at Vanderbilt University) in experiments in which
patterns of stripes oriented in different directions were shown to
the subjects. There were 8 different patterns of stripes. MRI
brain scans were made while the subjects gazed at a particular
pattern. There were slight differences in the brain scan patterns
as the subjects gazed at the different stripe patterns. A computer
program was written that could detect and tell the differences
among the patterns. Using the program and MRI brain scans, the
researchers correctly identified which patterns the subjects were
looking at.

The real mind reading came about when the researchers showed
the subject a “plaid” pattern consisting of two sets of stripes
simultaneously. The subject was told to ignore one of the
patterns and concentrate on the other. Sure enough, the
researchers could correctly identify that pattern from the brain
scans. Basic mind reading 101!

The other work was performed by John-Dylan Haynes and
Geraint Rees at University College London. They used the same
MRI brain scan approach, but with a twist. They showed the
subjects two images in succession. However, the first image was
flashed by so quickly that the subjects could only remember the
second one. Yet the MRI brain scan correctly identified the first
image even though the subject could not. This experiment must
tell us something about how fast our brain can detect something
and how slow it is in processing that information to our
consciousness.

On reading of this experiment, the thought occurred to me that
the advertisers who dream up commercials on TV may have
beaten these researchers to the punch. As I recall, some years
ago there was a fuss about flashing fleeting “subliminal” images
or messages within commercials. The idea was that the viewer
would subconsciously remember the images or messages and be
stimulated to buy the product. I assume that, to be successful,
the subliminal image would have to be considered by the brain to
be worth storing in memory long enough to prod me to buy the
product. Actually, it’s a bit frightening to think my brain would
take such action without me taking part in the decision.

Allen F. Bortrum