THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Dialog underneath a Artistic Commons license.
Severance, which imagines a world the place an individual’s work and private lives are surgically separated, returns Friday for its long-awaited second season. Whereas the idea of this gripping piece of science fiction is far-fetched, it touches on a query neuroscience has been attempting to reply for many years: Can an individual’s thoughts actually be cut up in two?
Remarkably, “split-brain” sufferers have existed for the reason that Forties. To manage epilepsy signs, these sufferers underwent a surgical procedure to separate the left and proper hemispheres. Comparable surgical procedures nonetheless occur right this moment.
Later analysis on the sort of surgical procedure confirmed that the separated hemispheres of split-brain sufferers may course of info independently. This raises the uncomfortable chance that the process creates two separate minds dwelling in a single mind.
In season one in every of Severance, Helly R (Britt Decrease) skilled a battle between her “innie” (the aspect of her thoughts that remembered her work life) and her “outie” (the aspect exterior of labor). Equally, there may be proof of a battle between the 2 hemispheres of actual split-brain sufferers.
When talking with split-brain sufferers, you’re often speaking with the left hemisphere of the mind, which controls speech. Nevertheless, some sufferers can talk from their proper hemisphere by writing, for instance, or by arranging Scrabble letters.
A younger affected person in a single research was requested what job he would really like sooner or later. His left hemisphere selected an workplace job making technical drawings. His proper hemisphere, nevertheless, organized letters to spell “car racer.”
Break up-brain sufferers have additionally reported “alien hand syndrome,” the place one in every of their arms is perceived to be shifting of its personal volition. These observations recommend that two separate acutely aware “individuals” might coexist in a single mind and should have conflicting objectives.
In Severance, nevertheless, each the innie and the outie have entry to speech. That is one indicator that the fictional “severance process” should contain a extra complicated separation of the mind’s networks.
An instance of a fancy separation of operate was described in the case report of Neil, in 1994. Neil was a teenage boy who had plenty of difficulties following a pineal gland tumor. Certainly one of these difficulties was a uncommon type of amnesia. It meant that Neil couldn’t recall the occasions of his day or report what he had realized at school. He had additionally develop into unable to learn, though he may write, and he was unable to call objects, though he may draw them.
Astonishingly, Neil was in a position to sustain together with his training. Researchers grew to become all in favour of how he was in a position to full his schoolwork regardless of having no reminiscence of what he was studying. They quizzed him a couple of novel he was learning at college, Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee. In dialog, Neil couldn’t bear in mind something in regards to the e book—not even the title. However when a researcher requested Neil to jot down down all the pieces he may bear in mind in regards to the e book, he wrote “Bloodshot Geranium home windows Cider with Rosie Dranium odor of damp peppar [sic] and mushroom progress”—all phrases linked to the novel. As Neil couldn’t learn, he needed to ask the researcher: “What did I write?”
