2 hemispheres. Two hemispheres - two universes

Studying the bowels of the Earth and deep space, humanity still knows little about how the brain functions, its capabilities and characteristics. Repeated attempts have been made to explain the principles of its operation, but the purpose of some areas of the brain is still not completely clear. Scientists suggest that the human brain has great power, allowing it to do incredible things, but the key to this most mysterious organ has not yet been found.

Brain and super abilities

Throughout human history, people have regularly appeared with some unusual abilities that make it possible to do impossible things from the point of view of ordinary people. Moreover, all such possibilities can be divided into physical and mental. The first is insensitivity to pain, high or low temperature, the ability to swallow sharp objects and others like them without consequences. There are cases when a person had no brain at all, and at the same time he lived completely full life. Mental abilities include the ability to instantly memorize a large amount of information, operate in the mind large numbers. The ability to clairvoyance and read thoughts is also one of the super abilities of the brain.

Recently, brain research has advanced relatively far, but there are still many mysteries associated with its functioning. Thus, it is known for certain that each region of the brain is responsible for its own certain type activities. In addition, it was found that brain activity never stops, even during sleep, and its productivity in normal conditions does not exceed 12%.

Dreams and altered states of consciousness

One of the main physiological needs of people is sleep. If you don't let a person sleep for several days, he can go crazy and eventually die. Moreover, if previously it was believed that sleep was necessary only for proper rest, recent studies have shown that this is not so. A detailed study of the state of the brain during sleep revealed that its activity not only does not decrease in this state, but is even slightly higher than during wakefulness.

As for dreams, they are no less paradoxical. According to traditional ideas, dreams reflect the events that happened to a person during the day, layering on his thoughts and intricately intertwining. But recent experiments have shown that not everything is so simple, in particular, it is unclear how a person sees prophetic dreams, where in detail one can see events that have not yet occurred. At the same time, there are cases when it was in a dream that insight descended on a person, and he found a solution to the problem that was tormenting him. So, the most famous story is about how D. Mendeleev saw his periodic table precisely in a dream. Occultists believe that in a dream a person finds himself in another, parallel world, when his brain changes its rhythm and tunes to the frequency of another universe. A similar state can be achieved while awake, as exemplified by Buddhist monks and yogis who practice complex psychotechniques.

Two universes in one person

If previously it was believed that the brain is a single and indivisible structure, then data on its duality have now been obtained. So, if a certain area is damaged, the organ continues to work, and if you separate the right and left hemispheres, they will still function like two full-fledged brains. But at the same time, each of them will react differently to external signals.

The results of this study led to the conclusion that the brain represents 2 complete worlds, significantly different from each other. This fact confirms the theory parallel worlds existing simultaneously in the same universe. There are suggestions that each hemisphere of the brain controls its body, while both of these bodies exist within the same physical shell and are in different worlds. Such assumptions confirm occult ideas - the existence of a parallel subtle world and other dimensions that previously did not fit into the logical picture of the world.

If we assume that there are other worlds different from ours, communication with which is maintained thanks to the brain, many inexplicable phenomena can be explained, for example, leaving the body.

Concerning prophetic dreams and insights in this state, there are assumptions that allow the existence of a certain information field. This field contains all the events that have happened and are yet to happen, as well as all knowledge that is not yet accessible to humanity. At certain moments, a person’s consciousness can spontaneously connect to this field and draw information from there. Most often this happens unconsciously, in an altered state of consciousness.

The human brain still conceals many mysteries, and it reveals its secrets gradually. It is the study of this most important organ that can open the way to new, unknown worlds, but at the same time it is fraught with many dangers.

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Who are left-brain and right-brain people and what is their difference? The awareness of each hemisphere is strictly limited to the half of the body subordinate to it (the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere controls the left). The right hemisphere is an excellent designer. The ability to extrapolate a whole image based on part of a picture is a function of the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere confidently detects absolutely identical patterns. The left hemisphere, on the contrary, is more easily given tasks to find differences. It processes information in parts, observing a strict order of analysis of parts. Right-hemisphere people have excellent spatial orientation, sense of body, and high coordination of movements. Left-hemisphere people have a sense of time and are muscularly resilient. Right-brained people are more successful at learning geometry due to its spatial nature. Algebra requires logic and sequential thinking, which is an advantage for left-brained students. The right hemisphere does not understand the signs “subtract”, “multiply”, “divide” and is not able to perform these actions. It can only cope with addition, and only if the tasks are the easiest, like 1 + 2 or 2 + 3. It copes perfectly with various tasks for generalization and systematization. Capturing a holistic image of an image instead of its step-by-step discrete analysis prevents the right hemisphere from mastering reading, which explains the failures in learning to read using left-hemisphere methods. If a child has a left dominant eye (which is a sign of right hemisphere), he may not immediately learn how to navigate on a sheet of paper. Vision is designed in such a way that a left-handed person's eye involuntarily falls on right side books and notebooks. That's why he reads the word from the end. He sees that it is nonsense and does not dare to say it out loud. Parents or the teacher do not understand why the child reads with pauses, they rush him, traumatize him, when the child needs help.

The ability to actively reproduce speech in the right hemisphere is much less pronounced than to understand words. Children with right hemisphere dominance do not control the correctness of their speech. Activities that require constant self-control are performed poorly by them. IN oral speech There may be problems with grammar and word choice. Semantic omissions are possible, especially if the right-hemisphere student is also impulsive. Children with left hemisphere dominance control their speech. The right hemisphere has absolutely no grammar. But the most literate students are those with equal hemispheres. That's how different they are! B. Bely said well about their differences: “Right-hemisphere people do not see individual trees behind the forest, and left-hemisphere people do not see the forest behind individual trees.” The maturation of the right hemisphere occurs at a faster pace than the left, and therefore in early period development, its contribution to psychological functioning exceeds the contribution of the left hemisphere. It is even stated that until the age of 9-10 years, a child is a right-hemisphere creature. According to some data, significant changes in interhemispheric interaction are observed by the age of 6-7 years, that is, by the beginning schooling. The impetus for the activation of the left hemisphere is considered to be the emergence of self-consciousness in a child; this occurs at the age of two. At the same time, stubbornness is most expressed.

Society overestimates the role of the left hemisphere and logical thinking in the development mental activity child. School methods learning trains and develops mainly the left hemisphere, ignoring at least half of the child’s capabilities. I. Saunière (France) argued: “By training the left hemisphere, you are training only the left hemisphere. By training the right hemisphere, you are training the whole brain.” It is known that the right hemisphere is associated with the development of creative thinking and intuition. The main type of thinking junior school student is visually figurative, closely related to emotional sphere. This suggests the involvement of the right hemisphere in learning. Thus, the shift in interhemispheric asymmetry towards the absolute dominance of the left-hemispheric thinking strategy is not only biological function growing up, but also the result cultural traditions, social influences and training. Such dominance can only be achieved through great efforts of the teacher, parents and student. But are these efforts always justified? The German teacher Gerbard also wrote that bad teacher presents the truth, and a good one teaches how to find it. A leading expert in the field of neuropedagogy, for example, Professor N.N. Traugott says: “The school must be warned against left-hemisphere education. This educates people who are incapable of real action in a real situation.” Professor T.P. Khrizman also warns: “Right-brain people - generators of ideas - are disappearing. The question is serious: we need to save the nation.” Professor D.V. Kolesov agrees with them: “True thinking is imaginative, complex, when it is important not only to define it with a concept, but also to understand it comprehensively.” Proof positive impact The development of the right hemisphere on the general intellectual development of the individual is based on the latest research by American, Swiss and Austrian scientists who conducted experiments among children from five to fifteen years old. The control group was trained according to the standard school curriculum, and the pilot program increased the number of music lessons at the expense of reducing the hours of math and language classes. Over three years, the children not only did not lag behind their peers in the control group, but even showed top scores, especially in studying foreign languages(verbal-analytical thinking).

Already at birth there are prerequisites for functional asymmetry brain. But research has confirmed that the development of one or another hemisphere, despite the genetic predestination to dominance, is associated with characteristics of education and development. That is, innate prerequisites are only initial conditions, and the asymmetry itself is formed in the process individual development influenced social contacts, especially family ones. That is why education should be built taking into account the imaginative thinking that prevails in children. And the most progressive and expedient development of both hemispheres of the brain. So the candidate psychological sciences, leading researcher at the Psychological Institute of the Russian Academy of Education, Victoria Yurkevich, believes that a non-rigid division of hemispheric functions promotes creativity (creative thinking), while a rigid division reduces it. In the book by A. L. Sirotyuk “Teaching children with different types thinking" says that The more efforts are made in the process of education towards the dominance of logical-sign thinking (left-hemisphere education), the more efforts will be required in the future to overcome its limitations. In other words, in order to liberate creative thinking and free up creative forces, we need to start remaking what was laid down in childhood. And re-educating, as we know, is more difficult than educating. The author claims that for neuroses and psychosomatic diseases there is a partial withdrawal of the right hemisphere contribution, as a result, the ability to make non-standard decisions decreases. In other words, if a child often gets sick due to constant overload and stress, then figuratively, that is, creative thinking he is developing poorly. And since the ability to imagine in childhood is a prerequisite for the thinking of an adult, the child does not receive proper development. But the adult thinks that if the child is ahead of his peers in knowledge and skill, then his thinking is better developed. What happens when such a child graduates from school, and then higher education? educational institution and comes to work? Unfortunately, increasingly, managers various fields note that modern young professionals with higher education less creative and independent in their decisions than their previous generation.

Conclusion

To summarize everything described above in the “Unconscious Communication” section, we can say the following. Silent dialogue, through the instinctive language of silent communication, accompanies verbal communication from beginning to end, but is not realized, only its result is realized, since people’s behavior changes accordingly. This can be explained by the presence of two consciousnesses.
In the 70s of the last century, after brain operations separating the hemispheres from each other, it was discovered that a person has two consciousnesses that think and behave differently. After the division of the brain, the patient's left consciousness (which has speech and logical thinking) always tried to explain out loud the actions of her right consciousness (which is mute, but understands speech). And he did it wrong, because he did not know about the motivating reasons for these actions, he did not have the information that the right consciousness had. Since the experimenter did not ask the patient about this, obviously, in this way her brain was trying to partially restore the lost connection between the hemispheres. Speech consciousness is called dominant; people do not feel or realize the work of silent consciousness. The patient with separated hemispheres also did not feel that she had two consciousnesses.
Roger Sperry, who first performed brain division surgery in 1974, wrote that “each hemisphere... has its own... individual sensations, perceptions, thoughts and ideas, completely separate from the corresponding internal experiences of the other hemisphere. Each hemisphere - left and right - has its own separate chain of memories and learned knowledge that is inaccessible to the other. In many respects, each of them has a separate own thinking"(italics mine).
Through self-analysis it is easy to notice that there is a conscious consistent logical thinking, which is guided by the dominant speech consciousness, and the unconscious work of the brain, the result of which the dominant consciousness receives in the form of “intuitive” knowledge or feeling.
During conscious thinking, speech consciousness asks its brain a question in the form of a thought, expressed in words, numbers or concept. This consciousness always receives the answer to the task in the form of a semantic concept (a code common to all peoples), which the brain immediately or after some time formalizes into words (in the appropriate language), numbers, formulas, etc.
Human unconscious thinking is probably similar to that of animals with developed brain, but, naturally, for more high level. The role of the dominant consciousness is only the feeling of the DESIRE to achieve the goal. Everything that is needed is calculated by the brain at the request of this consciousness, but without its participation. The brain communicates its conclusion to him in the form of “intuitive” advice (without logical explanation), sensation, or emotion (02/22/2009, publication certificate No. 1902220412).
By carefully observing people, you can notice that conscious and unconscious communication does not occur simultaneously, but alternately, replacing each other. It is obvious that the processing of information received during this communication also occurs alternately, through conscious and unconscious thinking. Outside of communication, this happens in different ways.
Examples of unconscious thinking.
Let me give you a case when I automatically, without the participation of consciousness, descended from a cliff. At first, conscious perception and thinking worked for me. Consciously, I saw small ledges, and experience showed that they were too small for my legs to stay on them. And conscious thinking assessed the shallow ledges as unsuitable for descent. Conclusion: the descent is not life-threatening, but I won’t be able to go down. And I decided to return. But I was very tired, I didn’t have the strength to go back up the steep climb. I was very upset, tears appeared in my eyes. A minute later, the tears disappeared, and for about five minutes I looked at the rock WITHOUT THOUGHTS, not seeing anything new on it. After which I had a FEELING OF CONFIDENCE that I could go down. I descended easily and without tension, feeling that my movements were controlled by something against my will, but as if with my consent.
I must think that when contemplating the rock again, I had an unconscious perception, during which my brain studied the small ledges, measuring them with my foot, and found among them those suitable for descent - not sloping, slightly larger than the rest (10-15 cm) , - and created an automatic action program for me. My unconscious perception and thinking turned on after the conscious one, IN RESPONSE TO FEELINGS of fatigue and severe grief, bordering on despair, in order to find a way out for me that was more acceptable than the one found by conscious thinking (going back). And the unconscious thinking communicated its conclusion to me, my dominant consciousness, ALSO IN THE FORM OF A FEELING of confidence that I could descend.
Here's another example. After a long climb up the mountain and a subsequent long descent, I was very tired. I stopped at a large rock that I wanted to go down and assessed the descent as life-threatening, but possible. There was no other way, and I decided to take a risk. It was conscious perception and conscious thinking. I wanted to go forward, but my legs took two steps back. I wanted to go forward again, but my legs again took two steps back. Apparently, while I was consciously reasoning, my unconscious mind was analyzing the same information (plus information that was inaccessible to me and information that I had forgotten about), and assessed the risk as unjustified. And when trying to do the wrong thing, the brain turned on the instinct of self-preservation (I observed similar behavior in an animal in a life-threatening situation). After that, I suddenly remembered that I had seen another road, a safe one, which I had forgotten about, but my brain remembered about it. Later I found out that there was no way down from that cliff. This time, unconscious thinking perceived and analyzed information simultaneously with conscious thinking, and, apparently, taking into account its conclusions. Here, too, there were experiences of feelings of extreme fatigue, grief and justified fear, a desire for a certain action, not for the sake of fun (pleasure), but as a necessity. Only this time the brain responded to them not with advice in the form of intuitive knowledge, but decisive action, committing violence against the dominant consciousness.
Thus, in an undivided brain, each type of thinking analyzes independently, constantly exchanging the conclusions it receives. Conscious thinking uses information from the five senses, personal experience and knowledge gained during training. Unconscious thinking, judging by its results, uses all the information available to the brain, including the ready-made conclusions of conscious logical thinking. But with both types of thinking, conscious and unconscious, the whole brain, both of its hemispheres, works. This can be seen without special research. For example, the brain conducts long work to solve any problem that conscious thinking could not solve immediately, the Brain does this both day and night, when both consciousnesses turn off. For a person really needs to solve this problem, he experiences passionate desire find an answer, or a feeling of strong apprehension (fear), caused by troubles threatening him if he does not find a solution. Or he was simply interested in solving it, he wanted to, but it didn’t work out quickly, and he put it off for a while, or, upset, abandoned his intention. The person is already busy with something else, or is resting, but the brain (“unconscious thinking”), stimulated by these feelings, continues to look for a solution. Or the work set by the dominant consciousness takes place to extract from memory long-forgotten moments that suddenly turned out to be very important for a person’s life. And unexpectedly, either the solution to the deferred task or the desired memory comes to him. (“Consciousness and thinking.” © Copyright: Larisa Viktorovna Svetlichnaya, 2009. Certificate of publication No. 2911200555). Apparently it was the unconscious mind that did the work.
Many everyday issues are resolved at the level of unconscious thinking. One might say, everything that does not require conscious thinking, because solving everything at the level of conscious thinking is difficult, time-consuming and irrational. The dominant consciousness receives a ready-made assessment or an “intuitive” recommendation for action.
The brain instantly switches channels for controlling communication and behavior: from verbal consciousness to silent consciousness, from conscious control to instinctive control and back. Obviously, for this there must be a special structure that is connected to all parts of the brain and owns all the information, an “internal operator.” It is logical to assume that this structure should converge all pathways and contain clusters of neurons that process information and transmit it to the cortex for further analysis, from where ready-made solution again goes to the internal operator. It is known that the thalamus works like a complex relay. It is connected to the entire brain, to the cortex of both hemispheres and to the subcortex, and contains several large clusters of neurons (“nuclei”). Perhaps it is the thalamus that is the “internal operator”?
There are ways of unconscious communication that do not depend on the will of consciousness, either verbal or silent. This is unconscious reflexive communication through brain radiation and others (see “Unconscious communication”). Many human reactions have a double origin: conditioned by rational consciousness, and conditioned by instinct, unconscious. A person, feeling this or that instinctive feeling, does not realize that it arose in a reflex way, and explains it to himself from the position of conscious perception of the world. For example, the instinctive joy of victory is a reflexive reaction to the feeling of defeat of the enemy in a mental struggle, and the joy of victory of the thinking consciousness arises from achieving one’s goal. With reason, people respect each other for intelligence, knowledge, skills, honesty, courage, generosity and other virtues. And they reflexively despise or respect only for defeat or victory in an instinctive mental battle, without realizing it.
Conscious behavior is guided by the dominant consciousness, which has command of speech and logical thinking. All instinctive behavior is based on conscious, but not conscious, communication. This may mean that during instinctive social behavior the dominant consciousness is switched off, and the mute consciousness continues to communicate at an unconscious level, through the instinctive language of mute communication and instinctive behavioral programs. These programs consist of many unconditioned reflexes, in the intervals between which the dominant consciousness turns on, and the person is sure that everything is his social behavior– conscious.
In the social instinct, according to two types of consciousness and thinking, there are two different leadership management programs. One of them controls only instinctive behavior members social group, the second is designed to control both conscious and instinctive behavior. Probably, each of them is located in its own hemisphere, in one of the tonsils. Since from the experience of removing both tonsils from a rhesus monkey, it is known that the programs of gregarious behavior are located precisely in the tonsils (“Brain, Mind and Behavior.” F. Bloom, A. Leiserson, L. Hofstadter, Moscow, “Mir”, 1988) .
There is mutual influence between all types of behavior management. The dominant consciousness can stop instinctive actions by force of will or disobey the prompt of unconscious thinking (“intuition”). Complex instincts influence the dominant consciousness, instilling in it an attraction to a certain goal and directing its behavior with emotions. And the simple instinct of self-preservation commits violence against the dominant consciousness. However, after its effect ends, humans and animals with a developed brain can act as they see fit.

According to the traditional findings of neurophysiology, in adults (in the vast majority of cases - right-handed people) it is considered dominant - the main one. It controls the movements of the main - right - hand and speech (as will be seen from the further presentation, some important functions, associated with speech, is performed by the other hemispheres; in this sense, the term “dominant” is somewhat arbitrary). The functions of the right hemisphere, which controls the left hand in right-handed people, up to recent years remained unclear, although a surprising guess about them for that time, now confirmed, was expressed by the English neurologist H. Jackson 100 years ago. Jackson believed that the right hemisphere is primarily occupied with visual perception outside world- in contrast to the left hemisphere, which primarily controls speech and related processes. As for sound speech, the right hemisphere, according to Jackson, can only produce such verbal formulas that, as it were, are not divided into parts, but as a whole serve as an automatically pronounced designation of the whole situation: “Hello!”, “Please!”, “Excuse me!” Testing and clarification of this hypothesis became possible only recently thanks to the material accumulated during neurosurgical operations on the brain, in particular during dissection of the two hemispheres of the brain.

1 - corpus callosum,
2 - intermediate mass,
3 - anterior commissure,
4 - optic chiasm (chiasma),
5 - posterior commissure

The left (“dominant” - in traditional terminology) hemisphere is connected to the right by several connecting pathways (Figure 4). The main one is the corpus callosum, consisting of fibers that connect the cortex of the two hemispheres. In addition to the corpus callosum, there are other connecting tracts - commissures (anterior commissure, posterior commissure, optic chiasm). The study of these connecting connections and their locations may represent significant interest from the point of view of general cybernetic theory.

Connections between automata (neurons) on the surface;
– – – internal connections

The geometric structure of the brain, as suggested about 20 years ago by academician. A N Kolmogorov is approaching such an ideal type, which can be theoretically calculated for any complex of automata. Such automata, exchanging information with each other, should be located on the surface of the ball, while the middle of the ball should be occupied by connecting connections between them. The location of neurons and their complexes in The cerebral cortex corresponds to some approximation to this ideal model (Figure 5).

MD - men's house;
1 - highest marriage class within the clan;
2 - average marriage class within the clan;
3 - lowest marriage class within the clan

These thoughts of Corbusier are also close to those ideas of mathematicians about the ideal geometry of a collective of automata, which are consistent with the structure of the human brain. Understanding by bionics that area related to cybernetics (if not included in cybernetics) modern knowledge, which searches living systems for a model for technical solutions, one could say that in the spirit of bionics, the human brain turns out to be a model for the super-cities of the future.

Using these architectural comparisons, we can say that the closest analogy to the human brain (like a slice of its model on a plane) is represented by the villages of primitive tribes: in them (like the Bororo Indians in Brazil) the circle formed by huts on the periphery is divided in half between two halves of the tribe, while in the center there is a meeting place for members of both halves (Fig. 7). In the human brain, the role of such a meeting place is played by connecting pathways between the two hemispheres, such as the corpus callosum.

If we return to the analogy with a two-machine complex and use the terminology of the theory of computer systems, then we can say that the brain normally represents an inseparable system of two functionally heterogeneous “machines” - the hemispheres. The separation of these hemispheres, which is extremely important for identifying the functions of each of them, turned out to be possible during operations when the connecting tracts between the hemispheres were cut to treat epilepsy (Fig. 8).

At the same time it was open amazing fact: the two hemispheres began to behave as two systems independent of each other, or as “two brains” according to the formulation of Gazanigi, one of the largest researchers who carried out these operations.

This was revealed most clearly in one patient, who began to shake his wife with his left hand, and right hand(who literally did not know what the left hand was doing and why) helped his wife pacify her own left hand.

Most patients who have undergone surgery to dissect the corpus callosum and other connecting tracts (commissures) behave like normal people. Moreover, it has been discovered that some people are born with separated hemispheres, which does not interfere with their lives. The study of such patients allowed the German neurologist H. Lipmann to identify some characteristics each hemisphere. At that time, due attention was not paid to these works. Only much later was it again established that the separation of the hemispheres makes it possible to carry out experiments that clarify the functions of each of the two hemispheres.

The experiments are based on the fact that normally the right half is projected to the left hemisphere of the brain, and the left half is projected to the right hemisphere. If the patient has a cut in the optic chiasm, where the visual fibers leading from the eyes to the brain meet, then the right hemisphere will be connected only to the left eye and receive information only from it, while the left hemisphere will receive information only from the right eye (Fig. 9) . When the image of a spoon flashes on the screen for the left eye (for the right hemisphere), the patient must find the spoon among other objects behind the screen, which he can do with his left hand, controlled by the right hemisphere. He solves this problem easily. But he cannot call a spoon a “spoon,” because naming objects is a function of the left hemisphere.

1 - corpus callosum;
2 - anterior commissure,
3 - commissure

Recently, a large series of experiments of the same type was carried out on people with non-split hemispheres, which generally gave similar results and led to the conclusion that the normal language capabilities of the right hemisphere are even weaker. Clinical data on the functions of each of the two hemispheres are also obtained from observations of patients with traumatic lesions of one of the hemispheres. This has long made it possible to determine the connection of the dominant hemisphere with speech with the further division of the functions of different sections of the cortex of the dominant hemisphere: some sections are responsible for the analysis of speech sounds, others for their synthesis. Connection of the left hemisphere with speech analysis, and the right hemisphere with decision spatial problems at normal people(right-handed) is also confirmed through electroencephalographic data (with several electrodes installed on the surface of each hemisphere) and recording eye movements. The same results have been confirmed by short-term switching off of one of the hemispheres (using electroconvulsive shock), in particular in the treatment of mental illnesses.

In a normal adult (with unsplit hemispheres), the right hemisphere (or “right brain”) can be considered almost completely mute: it can only produce inarticulate sounds like roars and squeals. The right hemisphere, to a very small extent, can understand speech addressed only to it - mainly only individual nouns and phrases and most simple sentences(not divided into elements, like “Thank you”). But at the same time, it is the right hemisphere that stores such information that allows one to interpret the meaning of words: it understands that a glass is a “vessel for liquid”, and “matches” are “used to light a fire.”
If we use the distinction in words—signs of natural language—accepted in semiotics (about signs, sign systems and texts) of their “signifying side” (sound) and “signified side” (meaning), then we can say that the right hemisphere is predominantly occupied by the signified side signs (Fig. 10).

When the left hemisphere of the brain suffers in a deaf-mute person, the right hemisphere retains the figurative language of gestures (each of which conveys a special meaning as separate word), and the ability to use the finger alphabet (in which each sign corresponds to a letter written language) and the oral language taught to the deaf-mute is lost. From this it is clear that in the right hemisphere the meaning of words (“the signified side” of signs or their meaning) is stored in a form that does not depend on their sound envelope. This conclusion is confirmed by the results of damage to the left hemisphere in the Japanese. Literate Japanese use both hieroglyphs - conceptual verbal writing, in which each meaning is conveyed by a special hieroglyph, and syllabic alphabet, which records the sound of words, but not their meaning. When the left hemisphere is damaged, the Japanese suffer from syllabic writing (hiragana and katakana), but not hieroglyphics (Fig. 10, 11).

The fact that the right hemisphere is concerned with the meanings of words, and not their sounds in natural language, is in good agreement with data on its other functions. Patients with disorders of the normal functioning of the right hemisphere cannot arrange pictures in such a way as to get a coherent story (that is, do exactly what is necessary to use hieroglyphs!).

Damage to the right hemisphere makes it impossible (as if “for future use”) to draw meaningless drawings and unfamiliar faces and to recognize familiar faces, even members of one’s own family.

This is a disorder visual images associated mainly with damage to the right hemisphere lobe. When an active field associated with an epileptic seizure occurs in the same area of ​​this hemisphere, the patient sees visual hallucinations. They can also be caused by stimulating the patient’s brain in the same area of ​​the right hemisphere with electrodes.

The corresponding areas of the left hemisphere are specialized specifically in processing speech sounds. This hemisphere is also involved in distinguishing other, non-speech sounds, but in a rather complex way: when perceiving sounds that differ in pitch, in right-handed people the perception of a high tone is associated with the right ear, i.e., with the left (dominant - speech) hemisphere, and the perception of a low tone tones - with the right (non-speech) hemisphere. The fact that this in a certain way depends on the dominance of the hemisphere is evident from experiments, judging by which the situation is the opposite for left-handers; studies of these musical illusions appear to reveal more complex classification functions of the left hemisphere that differ from simple frequency analysis. It is assumed that the perception of high tones is correlated with the hemisphere that processes natural language audio signals.

It is possible that specialized devices in the left hemisphere of the brain are used simultaneously for both the frequency analysis of speech sounds and the analysis of a certain type of non-speech sounds (high tones). As for complex non-speech sounds, their perception in right-handers is predominantly carried out by the right (non-speech) hemisphere, which also controls intonation (the pitch-melodic side) of oral speech. It is also mainly in charge of the highest creative musical abilities, because amusia (loss of these abilities) is observed with damage to the right (non-speech) hemisphere.

The structure of the language “processor” is revealed in lesions of different parts of the cortex of the left (dominant) hemisphere. These lesions lead either to “motor aphasia” - a disruption of speech synthesis processes associated with Broca’s area (Fig. 13), with further divisions into sections that cause different subtypes of motor aphasia, or to “ sensory aphasia"- disruption of speech analysis processes associated with Wernicke's area (Fig. 13).

If the processes of speech synthesis are disrupted, the meaning of the word may not be destroyed, while if the processes of speech analysis are disrupted, severe disorders of the meanings of words are detected, although the speech remains grammatically correct. These facts, discovered in the last century (Broca in 1865 and Wernicke in 1874), but refined by research in the next century, show that the speech hemisphere within itself has sufficient complex system specialized devices for input (analysis, Wernicke's area) and output (synthesis, Broca's area) of speech information.

Disorders caused by lesions of input systems have features in common with disorders of the right (non-speech) hemisphere, which can be explained in general case violation of the ways of obtaining information necessary to unite the signified and signifying sides of the sign (cf. Fig. 10). In both cases, it becomes difficult to enter data into the left hemisphere: if Wernicke’s area is damaged, the input of words into their sound form, with lesions of the right hemisphere, it is difficult to enter the data necessary to understand the meanings of words. Therefore, violations of the meanings of words with damage to Wernicke’s area, which is mainly concerned with the analysis of the signifying side, are partly similar to those violations of meanings that are caused by the lack of information from the right hemisphere, where data about the signified side of signs is stored. This shows that different mechanisms can lead to apparently similar consequences.

The study of aphasia has long led to an observation that is of exceptional importance for understanding the relationship between the functions of the left and right hemispheres. Vygotsky presented this conclusion with his characteristic brilliance: “At the Frankfurt Institute, cases were first described in which a patient who suffered from right-sided paralysis, but retained the ability to repeat the words spoken in front of him, understand speech and write, was unable to repeat the phrase: “I can do it well.” write with my right hand,” but always replaced the word “right” with the word “left” in this phrase, because in reality he now only knew how to write with his left hand, but could not write with his right. It was impossible for him to repeat a phrase that contained something inappropriate for his condition.”

The connection between imagination and speech, discovered in these observations by Bleuler and his school and confirmed by the analysis of child psychology, is important primarily because here a clear difference is revealed between the left speech hemisphere, not attached to specific situation, and the right hemisphere, which always operates only in real time. For the right hemisphere, all of its statements must be true; only statements from the left hemisphere can be false.

This conclusion is extremely important for understanding the relationships between the left hemisphere and, in particular, the two-valued one, based on the distinction between true and false statements. Logical systems allow based on certain rules determine whether the resulting statement (from true or false) is true or false. There is no doubt that such rules (as well as the categorical distinction between truth and lies) can be correlated specifically with the left hemisphere. The logical criterion of truth - falsity has nothing to do with the adequacy of some real situations, which is characteristic feature the right hemisphere as a whole, unable to detach itself from the specific specifics of a given situation.

Therefore, it can hardly be considered successful cybernetic model brain, which was recently proposed by M. Arbib. Criticizing the approach in which the information entered into the machine is necessarily specified in linguistic form. Arbib proposed a non-verbal model that operates directly with signals from the environment. But Arbib's machine is as far from the human brain as it is from behavior. ordinary person those wise men from Laputa in Swift's Gulliver's Travels who decided not to use words, but to show every time the thing in question.

If the model must reproduce essential features general structure brain, then it is necessary to achieve the connection of the non-verbal “executive” subsystem, which works in real time and in this respect is similar to the right hemisphere, with the planning “legislative” subsystem, which is largely occupied with the construction of linguistic (and logical) statements. The functions of such a subsystem would be to a certain extent similar to the role of the left hemisphere.

Shoshina Vera Nikolaevna

Therapist, education: Northern medical University. Work experience 10 years.

Articles written

The brain is the most important organ of the body, consisting of. To understand the characteristics of a particular person, it is important to know what the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for and what the left hemisphere is responsible for.

A person has sense organs with which he is connected with the outside world:

• hearing;
• vision;
• sense of smell;
• taste and tactile sensations through which he receives information.

And all this processing is done by the brain. In addition, it can be used to:

• planning action;
• making decisions;
• coordination of movements;
• recognition of emotions, dividing them into positive and negative;
• development of attention and memory;
• thinking (highest function).

The hemispheres of the brain are not separate structures that work in isolation. Between them there is a gap with the corpus callosum. This helps both hemispheres function in a coordinated manner.

Directs all movements of one side of the body opposite part brain So, if a person makes a movement with his right hand, it means that it received an impulse from the left hemisphere. In people who have had a stroke (a circulatory disorder in the brain), the side of the body that is opposite to the affected area is paralyzed.

The brain consists of two components – gray and white matter. , under its control is all human activity, and white is nerve fibers that perform many functions that guide the coordinated work of both hemispheres. Gray matter is formed in a person under the age of 6 years.

Functions of the left half

Due to the fact that the brain consists of two hemispheres, each of them is involved to a greater or lesser extent and performs its own functions. This discovery was made less than a century ago by American neurosurgeons Bogen, Vogel and neuropsychologist Sperry.

The left hemisphere is responsible for a person's ability to use language as a means of communication. It controls:

• speech process (construction of phrases, vocabulary);
• the ability to decipher information received through the organs of vision;
• use of graphic signs when writing;
• important information.

Man differs from the entire animal world in that he is the only one who has developed the ability to think, for which the left hemisphere is also responsible.

This side of the brain is capable of not only perceiving information, but also processing it. It is the left hemisphere that recognizes numbers and symbols because it can decipher them.

Since thanks to the left hemisphere a person is able to think logically, it is this part of the brain for a long time was considered leading (dominant). But this is only true when the functions are executed:

• speech;
• letter;
• solving mathematical problems;
• movement of the right half of the body.

Usually different types activities require activation of a certain part of the brain.

Right half tasks

A person’s ability to think exists not only thanks to the work of the left half of the brain, but also the right hemisphere. But for a long time, scientists did not see any particular benefit from the right hemisphere, and surgeons, if damaged, could remove it, considering it the same vestigial organ, like the appendix.

It got to the point that a child who was learning to write and took a pen in his left hand was retrained and forced to work with his right hand.

Since intuition and specific imaginative thinking are the merit of the right lobe, these functions were not considered important. And intuition was generally ridiculed, and its existence was questioned. It has been proven that this is nothing more than a myth.

Today, those people who can think outside the box are especially valuable, and their creativity is a striking feature of a creative personality. Psychologists believe that for a long time, raising children was left-brained. Therefore, in bookstores you can find collections of exercises with which you can learn to stimulate the right hemisphere of the brain.

Based on this, the question arises: if a scientist has developed logical thinking, for which the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible, then why does he need the right one? Maybe he doesn't need it?

Over time, scientists have come to the conclusion that the functions of the right hemisphere are important for the rest of the brain. It turned out that most mathematicians simultaneously use the style of thinking characteristic of the opposite lobe. Ordinary people think with words, but during scientific activities imagery is often connected to this. Therefore, this ability of both lobes to synchronize results in non-standard solutions, inventions, innovations in different spheres of life.

Albert Einstein began speaking and writing late as a child. This means that his right hemisphere was actively developing during this period. Thanks to him, he created his signs inner speech, and then used them in scientific activities. This world-famous scientist was not good at school sciences, except mathematics. But nevertheless he became educated person and created physical theory relativity, quantum theory heat capacity.

Analysis of his brain showed that the left and right hemispheres of the brain were more connected than in normal people, and some areas were enlarged. This feature allowed the world-famous scientist to give useful inventions to humanity.

The right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for processing nonverbal information, which is presented in the form of pictures, signs, symbols, and diagrams. In addition, a person who has developed right lobe, differs in that it:

• navigates space, collects puzzles;
• has an ear for music and a talent for music;
• understands the subtext of what is said;
• capable of dreaming and fantasizing, inventing, composing;
• has the ability to create, in particular, to draw;
• processes information in parallel from several sources.

These abilities make people interesting, extraordinary, and creative.

Development of the hemispheres

A child's brain works differently than an adult's. These differences are due to the fact that in a baby everything develops in stages, while in an adult it is an already formed organ.

Scientists have proven that the most important periods, influencing the development of emotions, cognitive processes and adaptation in society, are years from 1 to 4. The rate of formation of new neurons in a child is 700 per second. In an adult, the number of connections gradually decreases (hence forgetfulness, inattention, and slow reactions in older people).

First, the child actively develops the areas responsible for perception - vision and hearing. Then the area responsible for speech is activated. Then the process of cognition is formed.

Many parents want their child to develop according to his intended goal. And if the child does not live up to their expectations, they try to “repurpose” the children’s brains and end up with an artist or mathematician.

Every person owns a tool for developing the brain - these are his fingers. To Small child spoke faster, they do exercises with him fine motor skills. For getting active work of the left and right hemispheres, they try to do non-standard actions during the day. For example, those who like to draw try to do it in a mirror image.

Another exercise is “Ring”. They make it from big and index finger hands Then one by one thumb connected to the middle, ring and little fingers. This needs to be done as quickly as possible. First with one hand, and then with both at the same time.

During normal exercises, you need to often connect opposite limbs: the left hand with the right leg and vice versa. You can reach your right ear with your left hand, then do exactly the opposite. It is useful to do daily tasks with an inactive hand:

• fasten buttons on clothes;
• write on paper;
• sweep;
• wipe off dust;
• use cutlery.

As a result, productivity different parts brain

For those who want to practice exact sciences, you don’t need to specialize only in logical problems. By developing imaginative thinking, you can achieve significant results even in physics and mathematics.