Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Cerebral hemisphere

Stroke of insight:Jill Bolte Taylor

So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are -- I am -- the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me.

Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.



So here's the thing. I see the body as a tool for our spirit to manifest, and if we assign the expression of this spirit through the delegations of the brain's hemisphere, then what does this mean about the reality of the idea of position and momentum in our experiencing, if we had thought that such division would have relegated the experience to aspects of the right and left hemisphere?

The link offered by Phil, put this question in my mind, as I am trying to see the place my fabrications of mind as the penetrating of experience reside in the hemispheric association, sees, that such mapping can be assign a introspective measure of our realization of the right brain experience Phil offered in this link.

If we were to think of the oscillatory relation of position and momentum as a feature of the reality we reside in, then the very stages that the "I am resides in" is a fixation of the reality itself. While this can be reduce to a mathematical framework, this aspect of the uncertainty, would have then become the mattered states of existence, as we have come to define aspects of that same reality?

The cerebral hemispheres . See: Chapter 2: The Biological Basis of Behavior-Chapter Review


A cerebral hemisphere (hemispherium cerebrale) is defined as one of the two regions of the brain that are delineated by the body's median plane. The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres has an outer layer of grey matter called the cerebral cortex that is supported by an inner layer of white matter. The hemispheres are linked by the corpus callosum, a very large bundle of nerve fibers, and also by other smaller commissures, including the anterior commissure, posterior commissure, and hippocampal commissure. These commissures transfer information between the two hemispheres to coordinate localized functions. The architecture, types of cells, types of neurotransmitters and receptor subtypes are all distributed among the two hemispheres in a markedly asymmetric fashion. However, it must be noted that, while some of these hemispheric distribution differences are consistent across human beings, or even across some species, many observable distribution differences vary from individual to individual within a given species.


Hemisphere lateralization

Broad generalizations are often made in popular psychology about certain function (eg. logic, creativity) being lateralised, that is, located in the right or left side of the brain. These ideas need to be treated carefully because the popular lateralizations are often distributed across both sides.[1] However, there is some division of mental processing. Researchers have been investigating to what extent areas of the brain are specialized for certain functions. If a specific region of the brain is injured or destroyed, their functions can sometimes be recovered by neighbouring brain regions — even opposite hemispheres. This depends more on the age and the damage occurred than anything else.



The best evidence of lateralization for one specific ability is language. Both of the major areas involved in language skills, Broca's area and Wernicke's area, are in the left hemisphere. Perceptual information from the eyes, ears, and rest of the body is sent to the opposite hemisphere, and motor information sent out to the body also comes from the opposite hemisphere (see also primary sensory areas).


Neuropsychologists (e.g. Roger Sperry, Michael Gazzaniga) have studied split-brain patients to better understand lateralization. Sperry pioneered the use of lateralized tachistoscopes to present visual information to one hemisphere or the other. Scientists have also studied people born without a corpus callosum to determine specialization of brain hemispheres.



The magnocellular pathway of the visual system sends more information to the right hemisphere, while the parvocellular pathway sends more information to the left hemisphere. There are higher levels of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine on the right and higher levels of dopamine on the left. There is more white-matter (longer axons) on right and more grey-matter (cell bodies) on the left.[2]


Linear reasoning functions of language such as grammar and word production are often lateralized to the left hemisphere of the brain. In contrast, holistic reasoning functions of language such as intonation and emphasis are often lateralized to the right hemisphere of the brain. Other integrative functions such as intuitive or heuristic arithmetic, binaural sound localization, emotions, etc. seem to be more bilaterally controlled.[3]


2 comments:

  1. Hi Plato,

    I can see you have really been exploring all of this with great interest. I to for a long time have thought about this left brain, right brain thing. For me what is most interesting is that we have two distinct brains that incorporate to be what is recognized as one mind. It is then tantalizing to imagine the differences between brain and mind. I know that to some extent Dr. Taylor’s explanation seems a little oversimplified and yet is it?

    The other unique thing in her description is the temporal difference between the left and right. That is with the right brain although space and energy seems to open up; time effectively has no meaning as she was only aware of much time having passed when the left hemisphere checked in again. It appears that to the right brain time is just another and indistinguishable dimension.

    Now the question, does the left brain realize a difference or does it create or rather manifest one? Another way to phrase it, does time exists as a separate and distinguishable dimension without mind or consciousness (self awareness)? This then lends oneself to wonder whether a holistic view is all that implausible with consciousness making separations and distinctions that just aren’t there otherwise. It appears to me that consciousness plays heavily into all this and yet we all have a shared reality at one level and a separate one at another. No answers or conclusions to be had and yet it does allow the questions to improve and expand.

    Regards,

    Phil

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  2. I was intrigued by the image of Jill Taylor seeing her hand on the glider. I speak more on that here.

    That from a "heighten perspective" Jill Taylor could derive certain things about our natures, and the bodies that house them.

    That I would add the emotive element did not seem to far fetched to me? Fear, anger, love, and happiness. These all have their effects on the body. One contorts their face to represent these things with varying degrees, adding emphasis according to the relevant states.

    Adding psychological facets of thinking and metaphorical relations is indeed a unique art given in literature. Amy Tan is very good at it?:)Didn't you like her Cosmological constant references and the string theory thoughts?

    Richards Wagners's Ring of Nibelung

    Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. Ring of Power was interesting.

    Strange that we could have seen A Jungian Understanding of the Wagners Ring cycle, portrayed in todays world and how could have this been accomplished. But by re-introducing a fictional story and embueing it with the archetypal structures of what Jean Shinoda Bolen called, "The Abandon Child, The Authoritarian Father, and the Disempowered Feminine."

    See:Monday, June 26, 2006
    Carl Jung's Symbolical Nature?

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