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The somatosenses provide information about what is happening on the surface of our body and inside it. Coetaneous senses, or skin senses, respond to several different stimuli: pressure, vibration, heating, cooling, and events that cause tissue damage (such as pain). Organic senses arise from receptors in and around the internal organs, providing us with unpleasant sensations (such as stomachaches), or pleasurable ones (such as a cold drink on a hot summer day). Receptors located throughout our bodies detect environmental stimuli, and quickly send information to corresponding regions in the brain. All neural information is sent in the same manner, it is where, in the brain, the information is sent which determines how it will be interpreted and what type of corresponding information will be sent back as a response.

Somatosensory axons from the skin, muscles, or internal organs enter the central nervous system via spinal nerves. Somatosensory nerves located in the face and head primarily enter the brain through the cranial nerves.

Precisely localized information (such as fine touch) and imprecisely localized information (such as pain and temperature) are transmitted to the brain by different pathways. Axons that convey precisely localized information ascend throughout the dorsal columns in the white matter of the spinal cord to nuclei in the lower medulla. From there, axons actually cross to the hemisphere opposite the side of the body that the stimuli were received. Axons cross to the opposite side of the brain at the medulla, travel to the thalamus. The thalamus is divided into several nuclei, or groups of neurons of similar shape and function. Some of these nuclei receive the sensory information from the ascending pathways and project it out to the somatosensory cortex so that it can be interpreted.

In contrast, the axons that convey poorly localized information (pain, temperature) enter the spinal cord and immediately cross to the opposite side. From here, these neurons ascend through the spinothalamic tract to the nuclei in the thalamus, subsequently being passed to the correct region of the brain for interpretation.

Information is sent to muscles in the body through motor pathways. This information allows you to flex your biceps, squeeze a tennis ball, correct your posture, and move. There are two types of descending pathways: corticospinal pathways, which originate in the cerebral cortex, and noncorticospinal pathways, which originate in the brainstem. In general, the corticospinal pathways have greater influence over motor neurons that control muscles involved in fine, isolated movements, particularly those of the fingers and hands. The noncortoicospinal pathways are more involved with coordination of the large muscle groups used in things such as the maintenance of upright posture, balance, walking, and in head and body movements when turning toward a specific stimulus. Motor pathways may be excitatory (causing a muscle to contract), or inhibitory (preventing a muscle contraction).

In general, the right hemisphere interprets information and controls actions of the left side of the body. The left hemisphere interprets information and controls actions of the right side of the body. If the connection between the hemispheres is severed, sensory information cannot pass to the correct region of the brain in order for corresponding response to be made. For example, callosal apraxia is a form of limb apraxia caused by damage to the anterior corpus callosum. When a person hears a verbal request to perform a movement, let’s say to raise both hands in the air, circuits in the left hemisphere analyze the meaning of the speech. Then, a neural command activates the region of the brain that contains the memory of the movement, the prefrontal cortex. This information is passed to the part of the brain that controls the actual movement to be performed, the motor cortex. The left motor cortex controls the movements of the right hand, and the right motor cortex controls the movements of the left hand. In order for the right motor cortex to be activated so that the left hand can be raised, the analysis of the verbal command must be passed from the left hemisphere to the right side, through the corpus callosum. Thus, the right arm can perform the requested movement, but the left cannot.

Early after a split brain surgery, the patient shows a marked apraxia of the left hand to verbal command. This occurs because the right hemisphere, which controls the left hand, has poor language comprehension. Remarkably, this symptom recovers to a considerable degree. It is possible that the left hemisphere gains ipsilateral (same side) control of the left hand, and/or the right hemisphere acquires some basic language skill.

Roger Sperry and Ronald Meyers first discovered the split brain in the laboratory in the late 1950’s. Initially they began experimenting with cats, and later proceeded to study monkeys. In 1961 the first human patient was subject to the split brain surgery.

The procedure worked well as a “cure” for patients who suffered from severe epilepsy and did not respond to anti-epileptic drugs. It was soon discovered that patients who had a commissurotomy had some interesting difficulties. Patients were not able to communicate information from one hemisphere to the other, almost as though they now had two separate brains.

In studies of hemispherical differences in visual recognition, stimuli are often presented with a tachistoscope, which flashes an image in a specific part of the visual field so fast that the subject does not have time to move his or her eyes. In a standard split-brain experiment, a split-brain patient is seated in front of a screen that hides his or her hands from view. Behind the screen,

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