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Left Brain, Right Brain: Two Sides, One Whole
20 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of Neuroblast, hosts Athena and Tracey debunk the left-brain/right-brain dominance myth. They explore how early research on hemispheric specialization was oversimplified, clarifying that both hemispheres work together in most cognitive tasks. Tracey emphasizes a whole-brain approach to learning and offers tips for engaging both sides of the brain.
Original music by: Julian Starr
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Transcript
Introduction and Myth Debunking
00:00:09
Speaker
Hi, and life like some sort of weird Frankenstein experiment. But don't worry, we will not be playing favorites with the hemisphere. I'm Athena Stephens, actor, writer, and neuroenthusiast.
00:00:31
Speaker
And my name is Tracy Tokuhama Espinosa. I'm an international educator and consultant, and I teach a course at Harvard University called The Neuroscience of Learning. Yeah, she's also a PhD. I don't know why she doesn't say that, but Tracey really knows her stuff.
00:00:49
Speaker
We are so lucky to be listening to her. In our ears and on our phones, that's the world we live in now. So, today we are talking left brain, right brain, and the myth that there is a difference. And Tracey, I have to say, this myth is like a cult.
00:01:14
Speaker
People believe it and they will go to their dying day going, well, I'm not creative because I'm, I can't even remember what the logic is. Right brain, I'm creative because I'm left, but no, I can't. The science is so bad, I can't even keep this straight.
00:01:36
Speaker
What's going on? Why do we have the two hemispheres? Why do we think they're different? And can we get rid of this myth? You're right. It is one of the most persistent myths, but it's one that started to fade, I would say, over the past couple years.
Neuroimaging and Hemispheres
00:01:52
Speaker
I think it was so popular because it was so colorful and it was so pretty. And if you were right-brained and creative, you had all these rainbows going on there. And if you were you know orderly in scientific view, you had your left brain all you know with these perfectly aligned you know sections in your brain. And people really related it to those drawings as being something that said, you know this speaks to me, this is who I am.
00:02:17
Speaker
And it's also very easy to say, oh, you know, i'm oh I'm not creative because my schooling never stimulated my right hemisphere or things like that. I mean, people, it's it's a good excuse. It's a good excuse to get out of this. um But it's absolutely fascinating to see if you now look at new neuroimaging, current neuroimaging, there is nothing your brain does that is limited to one hemisphere or the other. Everything is a cross-section of networks that cross hemispheres and so that is the bottom line of it is that we can now see how that is just a myth. Now how do you get rid of the myth when people are so enamored with it and they they just identify with it so much? That's another question.
00:03:04
Speaker
So, okay, let's back up because I have my AP psychology shirt on from 2002. It's a world shaking into blood of our teacher. That's how I was sat on this path to be here. But remember, I know I learned about the Brokers area and the Wernicke's area and that being on one side and that deals with the language so you're saying this is the myth but then we also have this very specific area that is the one side okay and so we have um
00:03:45
Speaker
So the two hemispheres, there's a lot of things you have two of in your body. Isn't that cool? You have two arms, you have you know two legs. you know so And it's fascinating to see you have two sides of your brain, two hemispheres, but they work as a single unit, just like your body you know works together as a single unit. um The specialization, looking for identifying areas like Broca's area and Wernicke's area and the left and frontal and parietal cortex,
00:04:12
Speaker
is a really big, was a big finding and it showed that most people, um which was, but not
Brain Adaptability and Specialization
00:04:19
Speaker
all. So 95% of right-handed people and 70% of left-handed people did have these key language areas in the left hemisphere.
00:04:28
Speaker
But you know that means that there's you know about 15% actually cross-lateral and the other 15% had it contralateral in the other hemisphere, which is also pretty fascinating. But why would this be? Why would there be certain specialization areas? Well, what has come to light over the years is that people who have damage in those particular areas can actually recuperate language skills, often using the mirror image side of of the brain. i mean So it's that not that the brain is incapable of having language centers
00:05:03
Speaker
in the right hemisphere, um it's just not typically done that way. So, but if they were to be damaged, then other areas of the brain take over that particular job. And so it might be that, you know, talk about analogies. Remember, we talked about things that when you can't see or touch your brain, sometimes analogies are the best thing. So let's say you have figured out the way to the grocery store. This is your particular favorite route. You're going to go down one street, you're going to go right a block, and then you go left, and then you've reached the register. But what happens if one of those streets is blocked?
00:05:37
Speaker
Well, you figure out another road there and you get there. And if you do it over and over and over again, actually it might become your favorite route because it becomes, oh, I like this, this road a little bit better. what if Your brain does have specific hubs and nodes, um which are identified as, as places. Well, this seems like the important area, right? This is where language is. Well, actually language is not in These areas it's actually processed through specific hubs and nodes in those ways, but they can be In other parts of the brain as well So the point is that your brain typically will do something but it doesn't have to do it in those areas and so this became
00:06:18
Speaker
um really I think that the the very peak of thinking there was a division between the hemispheres was when Roger Sperry I think got a Nobel Prize for doing this in the in the late 60s early 70s where he said split here's the split brain research and it's telling us this about personalities and this about the way the brain works and how humans work ah Only to find now, you know, 50, 60 years later, we have a totally different vision of this because other people have now identified, for example, um split brain patients like young kids who have to have their corpus callosum, which is the span of fibers joining the two hemispheres, they have it cut.
00:07:01
Speaker
and there because they're ah suffering from severe epilepsy or something like that. And so they split this and then they stop having these hemispheres that cross into both hemispheres because they're now isolated. Well, sometimes the damage to one hemisphere is so bad that they have to have one of their hemispheres removed.
00:07:22
Speaker
and Even with their whole hemisphere removed, those kids can grow up, ah get educated, get a college education, be perfectly fine, and people don't notice that they only have one hemisphere of their brain. And so, um this was worked by, well, Mary Helen Yimurdinga Yang and Antonio Batro pointed these studies out about um the story of Miko, a boy with half a brain, and a bunch of other stories where, you know, is it really that one hemisphere is responsible for one thing or another? um And they found, not not even, so sight was, you were, these kids were able to see with both eyes, which makes no sense because we've always thought that it crossed hemispheres and in the ocular chasm and you weren't able to see if you had lost this.
00:08:08
Speaker
which is pretty, pretty fascinating. And so going back to the what I mentioned before, you have a lot of things in your body where you have two. So this is like God's insurance plan, okay? You can live with one.
00:08:21
Speaker
of anything you have two of, you can live with just one and be fine. So this is kind of what we now see to the extreme in hemispheres of the brain. You could actually live with just one hemisphere. You can live with just one hand or one eye or one ear or whatever. You can live just fine. And so part of the fascination with the hemispheres is, why do we have two? Well, you could ask the same, but why do we have two of anything in the body? um But they have been associated with particular um hubs or key areas like broken vermicose area for language. um But there are so many cases now that show how even if those areas are damaged, other parts of the brain will take over. So it means that these are kind of default places where
00:09:09
Speaker
Maybe language processing would occur, but not necessarily the main places of where language is. And now if you look at things like humor, you are athena so Athena, humor processing, intonation, far more right hemisphere networks involved in that. And so it's not that language is in the left hemisphere. Language is all over the brain and different parts of language are housed in different parts of the brain.
Creativity vs Logic
00:09:37
Speaker
And just to add on to what Tracy is saying, because I hear this myth a lot, because I'm a creative person working in creative fields and I'm having to, you know, sit my hands whenever hear and the creators, and it will work the other way around as well, you do have to use logic.
00:10:03
Speaker
to make a good painting. day You have to be able to critically think in a logistical, systematic way when it comes to telling a story or forming language. So even these specialized skills that are vocational, that we find our identity in,
00:10:28
Speaker
There's not one in the other, are they? No, they're not. And that's so interesting because even as small children, I remember ah being told, oh, so you're your sister is the creative one and your other sister is the athletic one. What are you good at? And I was thinking, oh my gosh, it's sort of, if she if they've got those skills, I can't have them. That was another thing is that, you know, you had to divide up skill sets amongst the family members. Well, we talk about,
00:10:55
Speaker
how people might be more creative or more logical. When your brain is really not, um creativity and intelligence are so tightly wound in in your brain, there's there's not one without the other. And so you you this whole idea that you're dividing those types of skill sets is is pretty often. We all would like to feel like we are more creative or that we are more logical when it's necessary or whatever. But the key idea here, Athena, is that your brain adapts to what it does most. And so if you have, if your desire is to be creative and so you think it's a zero sum game and if I'm creative, I can't be logical, then your excuse is, oh no, I can't do math because I'm really good at being creative and drawing or something like that. And it's easier to sort of, you know, to make excuses for not developing
00:11:48
Speaker
um skill sets when all of them um I mean look at look at Da Vinci look at look at the way that ah you know optimal brains really work they're drawing on all of these different networks creativity logic cognition language all of these things simultaneously and so um No, it's not one thing or another. I was actually thinking about Da Vinci a lot as you were speaking and because I didn't study of them last year for one of my classes as I was looking at going from creative fields into science and here's the thing with DaVinci guys like
00:12:30
Speaker
He wasn't special, he just had a very full way of seeing the world, and that comes with creativity, it comes with observation, it comes with asking questions, it comes with insight, which isn't.
00:12:48
Speaker
just about logic or just about pre-thinking, it's both. Yeah, and it's and it's engaging with your world. It's you know what it's seeing what's out there. um I was talking to a neighbor and I said, oh yeah, when I walk the dog, I just can't, um and how many beautiful leaves this, and I was talking about things I had seen, and she hadn't seen any of that.
00:13:12
Speaker
and she says, oh I was just trying to get back inside because I you know the weather was it was going to rain away and she she didn't she was so inside of herself that she didn't see the world and we that's how humans are you live in the world you engage in the world and if you can be entertained by the world around you you can definitely have a a healthier you know outlook towards things, and eat more easily engage in these creative sides of things, but also the logical sides of
Neuroplasticity and Growth
00:13:39
Speaker
things. And I think that um knowing that there's no cognition without emotion, that there is no creative endeavor that is not intelligent, if you can see how the brain really works with these you know networks that are crisscrossing through throughout your brain,
00:13:54
Speaker
it makes you it gives you a lot of hope it makes it you know you feel positive well i always thought i wasn't very x you know creative or logical or whatever it is um but knowing that that is just wide open your plasticity exists until you die so you can always begin to approach you know your world in a more open way and and a more seen way and in a more visible way where you can take more things in um at all different levels. And so hopefully that'll be what um but what our listeners will take away is that there's definitely you know neuroplasticity is probably the most hopeful concept to have emerged in in you know the past 20 years in which we now know that your brain never stops learning i mean until you die. and so
00:14:40
Speaker
You're not right or left brained. You're not locked into that. And even if you've talked yourself into believing you're one or the other, talk yourself out of it. You know, that's neuroplasticity. You can learn and grow. .. Indeed. I mean, again, and I think I'll be saying there's a lot. Tracey and I are the voices in your ears. Like if you are waiting for divine intervention, we are the closest that you're going to get. We are the voices in your ears - going you are more than just a creative person or a magical person you have the capability of being both and it's not either or and if you are hearing this then we are talking to you
00:15:24
Speaker
Okay, Tracy. So, action points, because I am an action gal, what can we do to engage our whole brain in the ways that we might not have thought of? Well, number one, you can never not always engage your whole brain. There's nothing you do that is just one hemisphere or another. So, start with the premise that you're always, you are, crossing hemispheres all the time. I mean, even before my coffee.
00:15:54
Speaker
I think the second thing is we're still leaning into this a bit of, um I would say there are things you can do, but there's also ways you can be. And in the way you can be, I would really push the shift in attitude of appreciating, you know, you are who you are based on your nature, you know, the genetic, the biology, your your genetic makeup.
00:16:18
Speaker
via you know the environment you grew up with, because only certain you know genes are potentiated by your environment. But then you also have this little tidbit here that I love and embrace, which is free will. You get to choose. You're not stuck. You are not stuck in your own biology or stuck in your own zip code. You you can choose to do things a little bit differently. So that would be attitudinal. But as far as skill sets are concerned, um anything that you do that takes you out of your comfort zone is great for actually you know stimulating new um um connections in your brain uh if you have never considered yourself a creative person do something that you know is daring you know go ahead and do something that is a little bit more creative on that side or if you don't feel that you've ever been logical challenge yourself with actually trying to do something
00:17:04
Speaker
Now I love and Athena loves to take classes all the time because we get such a kick with the interaction with our classmates and hearing how other people think and learning in that way. But other people might just be happy on their own, you know, trying to look at things in a smaller group situation. But I would just say, you know, dare to air, get out of your comfort zone. I think that is the biggest piece of just understanding the potential of your own brain.
Conclusion and Encouragement
00:17:29
Speaker
Alright guys, the gauntlet has been set! We are coming back next week with another episode, so you have 7 days to figure out a way to get out of your comfort zone. Maybe not every day, but try it once or twice and see what happens.
00:17:48
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on Neuro blast. Remember, you have no excuse not to use your whole brain. Stay curious, and we'll see you next time. Thanks so much.