People who underwent surgery as children to remove half of their brain were still able to accurately recognize differences between pairs of words or faces.
The research was done to study brain plasticity and perception. Plasticity is when the brain can be molded to reorganize itself in the hemispheric region not injured, or in this case, the only hemispheric region that is there.
“Working with hemispherectomy patients allowed us to study the upper bounds of functional capacity of a single brain hemisphere. With the results from this study, we now have a foot in the door of human neuroplasticity and can finally begin examining the capabilities of brain reorganization.”.
Dr. Marlene Behrmann, senior author of the study and professor of ophthalmology and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
Researchers looked at people who, as children, underwent a complete hemispherectomy, or the surgical removal of one hemisphere of the brain to control seizures. The study had 40 participants.
Researchers gave the participants pairs of words, each differing by one letter, to evaluate word recognition abilities. For example, words such as “soup” and “soap” were given to each participant.
The images or words were only shown on the screen for a fraction of a second. Then, the participants had to determine if the pair of faces or words were the identical or distinct in any way.
5) The contamination spread to several areas of Europe Winds and rainfalls, radioactive contamination quickly spread to Russia, Belarus, and some parts of Scandinavia and southeast Europe.
The study allows researchers to understand the functionality of the human brain and realize its ability to reorganize under certain circumstances.