Roger Sperry
Roger Sperry is a psychobiologist, who discovered that human beings are of two minds. That is, the human brain has specialized functions on both its left and right hemispheres, and each of these regions can operate independently from each other (PBS).
Born on August 20, 1913 in Hartford Connecticut, Sperry had his early education at Elmwood, Connecticut and William Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. He spent his undergraduate education at Oberlin College on a 4 year Amos C. Miller Scholarship, and graduated with an AB in English in 1935. He stayed for two more years in Oberlin College for an MA in Psychology, and then took his Doctorate degree in zoology at the University of Chicago (Odelberg).
Right after he received his Ph.D. diploma in 1941, Sperry did a postdoctoral research at Harvard University as National Research Council Fellow for a year. Subsequently, he became a part of the Harvard, Yerkes Laboratory of Primate Biology and the National Institutes of Health, where he held various positions. By 1954, he joined the faculty of California Institute of Technology, where he remained for 30 years (Odelberg).
In the early 1960's, Roger Sperry along with his colleagues, conducted profound experiments on epileptic patients whose corpus collosums, the area of the brain that transfer the signals between the right and left hemispheres, have been severed. His research showed that the left hemisphere is normally dominant in aspects of the analytical and verbal tasks, while the right hemisphere is functional for spatial tasks, music and other visual-construction tasks. Eventually, Sperry's groundbreaking experiment on the brain laid the foundation for further understanding human brain lateralization. Because of his contribution, Roger Sperry received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with other notable figures namely David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel (PBS).
Sperry died in April 17, 1994 but, his works and contributions in the field of science remained as one of the most significant discoveries that opened whole new fields in psychological and philosophical perspectives (PBS).
Born on August 20, 1913 in Hartford Connecticut, Sperry had his early education at Elmwood, Connecticut and William Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. He spent his undergraduate education at Oberlin College on a 4 year Amos C. Miller Scholarship, and graduated with an AB in English in 1935. He stayed for two more years in Oberlin College for an MA in Psychology, and then took his Doctorate degree in zoology at the University of Chicago (Odelberg).
Right after he received his Ph.D. diploma in 1941, Sperry did a postdoctoral research at Harvard University as National Research Council Fellow for a year. Subsequently, he became a part of the Harvard, Yerkes Laboratory of Primate Biology and the National Institutes of Health, where he held various positions. By 1954, he joined the faculty of California Institute of Technology, where he remained for 30 years (Odelberg).
In the early 1960's, Roger Sperry along with his colleagues, conducted profound experiments on epileptic patients whose corpus collosums, the area of the brain that transfer the signals between the right and left hemispheres, have been severed. His research showed that the left hemisphere is normally dominant in aspects of the analytical and verbal tasks, while the right hemisphere is functional for spatial tasks, music and other visual-construction tasks. Eventually, Sperry's groundbreaking experiment on the brain laid the foundation for further understanding human brain lateralization. Because of his contribution, Roger Sperry received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which he shared with other notable figures namely David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel (PBS).
Sperry died in April 17, 1994 but, his works and contributions in the field of science remained as one of the most significant discoveries that opened whole new fields in psychological and philosophical perspectives (PBS).
Categories:
Roger Sperry
0 comments:
Post a Comment