Michael Gazzaniga
- Lora Leon
- Jun 2, 2016
- 3 min read
Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Ph.D. is a professor at UC Santa Barbara, where he also heads the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. His list of achievements is long including the president of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, the founding director of the MacArthur Foundation's Law and Neuroscience Project and the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, and also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences. He is well known as one of the top researchers in cognitive neuroscience, which is concerned with using advanced neuroimaging to map the human brain and find the origins of specific cognitions and/or behaviors within the brain.
Cognitive neuroscience most often will compare a damaged or abnormal brain to a healthy or normal brain to map and examine the specific brain regions. Impairment in the damaged brain will display what cognitions or behaviors are affected by that specific region/area of the brain. Gazzaniga has even been mentioned in a novel by Stanislaw Lem called "Peace on Earth" and has been honored by esteemed colleagues with a tribute to his work in psychology/cognitive neuroscience in 2010.
Split Brain Research
He has done a large amount of research with split brain patients, which has been a huge area of study for biological psychology or biological neuroscience. The corpus callosum is the collection of nerves in the center of the brain connecting the left and right hemispheres. While an individual or animal may still be able to function with the hemispheres separated, there is often a shift in sensation and perception for these individuals as well as other cognitive differences. It is now well known that a larger corpus callosum may contribute to higher levels of intelligence and/or more abstract and philosophical thinking, after it was discovered that Albert Einstein’s corpus callosum is much larger than average.
On the scope of cognitive neuroscience, Gazzagniga has devoted much of his research to comparing split brain patients to those who do not suffer with the condition. This is giving scientists and doctors more insight into the exact function of the corpus callosum beyond a simple neuronal connection between the two hemispheres. How exactly do the hemispheres interact? What is the importance of the interaction? Are there specific sensations and perceptions that rely more heavily on this connectedness? Do certain behaviors need communication between the hemispheres? These are the types of questions that Gazzaniga and his colleagues research has helped is helping to answer, along with many others.
SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind
Dr. Michael Gazzaniga heads the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind in Santa Barbara, California. This is an interdisciplinary center for the study of the relationship between brain and mind. When studying the human "mind" (which is referred to separately from the physical brain in philosophical discussions among doctors of Philosophy) there are many different disciplines that can and should be considered including, but not limited to history, philosophy, literature, economics, anthropology, linguistics, molecular biology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, or the traditional mind-study disciplines of psychology, neuroscience, and medicine.
Although this seems like an extremely broad area of study, the researchers studying the mind/brain connection in regards to any of these topics are often after the same Holy Grail: the hard problem of consciousness (which is a whole other article in itself…or 2 or 10 articles). The hard problem of consciousness asks that question, "What is consciousness?" We can get even deeper into the hard problem by expanding upon this question. What about the mind/brain connection brings about consciousness? Is the nervous system responsible for consciousness? We can take all of the previously mentioned areas of study and apply them to the human brain to gain more insight to attempt to answer the hard problem of consciousness (which many of the top minds feel we will never do – it is almost like trying to discover the meaning of life). However, with the hard work and dedication of Psychologists like Michael Gazzaniga, we continue to find out more answers and more information to lead us to hints regarding the hard problem of consciousness. It is an exciting time to be alive and aware, and we can look forward to much more ground-breaking research by the staff and students at the SAGE Center under the guidance of Dr. Gazzaniga.
References
Michael Gazzaniga. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gazzaniga
Michael Gazzaniga. (n.d.). Retrieved from Psychological and Brain Sciences: UC Santa Barbara: https://www.psych.ucsb.edu/people/faculty/gazzaniga
SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. (n.d.). Retrieved from Sage Center UC Santa Barbara: https://www.sagecenter.ucsb.edu/center
Weiwei Men, D. F. (2013, Sept 24). The corpus callosum of Albert Einstein‘s brain: another clue to his high intelligence? Retrieved from Oxford University Press - Brain: A Journal on Neurology: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/09/24/brain.awt252
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